Oops! (Running)
I wasn’t scared when I hit the ground. I wasn’t scared at all. You give your tacit consent to this kind of things the moment you start keeping a dog. I’ve got two. They caught my glare as I stared at chin-up bars and brownish-green grass of the school stadium, making me grab the handles of their leashes no later then they’d start dragging them on the ground. However, even if they wanted to, they wouldn’t - I’ve never fallen in front of them accidentally, so they were really keen about what was happening next. Well, in fact I did. Once, this summer, Gin made a leash loop around my legs, I jumped high to escape it and landed on my elbows. They went bleeding, but it was knee pits I was trying to save. And that one doesn’t count, because Dad was leading the dogs, and I was just keeping him company. So this time Gin was approaching me and I knew he was gonna jump. Right before my nose, blood was gushing from my hands, mingling with pebbles. It smelled mawkish. I made some awkward movements to check my legs and chest, then stood up and looked at myself. My jacket went half-unbuttoned, my tights, however, were intact, and my headphones were hanging down nearly to the ground. Everything was streaked with dirty splashes and pebbles. I thanked myself for having put on a midi-skirt which pretty much saved my knees. I just didn’t expect to fall. We’ve done running before and I was nearly a perfect dog-walker. We had plans. I wanted to go to the park, walk around the Christmas tree and strut along the high street with Kings of Leon in my headphones. I still wanted to do that. Blood was running down the handles, making my fingers sticky. At least bleeding hands don’t feel cold without gloves. A bit of twitching and we dragged ourselves out of the school gate, plodding along the same street we’d so triumphantly come here, just the other way round.
The weather looked like a New Year present. At first I wasn’t reluctant to go, wasn’t willing either. I liked the idea of sun shining so bright in early January, and so did my dogs. We walked our favourite block, splashing puddles on our way and singing Slow Night, So Long. We looked cheeky, we always do when walking together. We like folks staring. We like cars letting us pass. We like splashing puddles. Like walking in the rhythm of the current song as well. I stopped at a crossroad to choose the route. Could go to the left, shops and lots of people, could go straight, whole lot less crowd and lawns somewhat farther. Straight we go. A case of vodka in the middle of a sidewalk. No one around. I thought: “Cool”. We walked along my school stadium. The fence is made of narrow pipes, thus it’s see-through. I remembered how we were running over the snow there last year. The snow was knee-deep, we jumped into it from tires standing vertically and the sun was sparkling to a blinding extent. I thought now, a little running wouldn’t do any harm. The stadium was covered in puddles and pebbles. We forded a big puddle under the gate and headed for the stadium. We ran. Considering the thought of running, I didn’t realize it makes so bloody happy. I felt absolutely unstoppable, as I usually wish. Tonic was on my left, Gin on my right. Some moment Gin decided to run near Tonic, so he crossed my way. I was running too fast, I couldn’t stop.