61 - They were running from something.
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I had finished my jobs for the day, and I was
sitting on the bench behind the rusty backstop
fence at this old baseball field on the outskirts
of town. And I'm eating a spaghetti and peanut
butter sandwich with mustard and cucumbers, which
is a really under-rated combo in my opinion. I'm
lost in thought, but then all of a sudden I notice
that the field is filled with animals. I see
squirrels, rats, cats, a few coyotes, some stray
dogs, several racoons, even a couple of deer. All
spread out across the width of the field, and all
running fast. And in the sky above I see birds big
and small, tits and hawks and everything in
between. And it's odd to see all these creatures
together in one spot like that, but what's weirder
is that they are all moving in the same direction,
heading west. Very determined, very
one-directional, like they were being chased, but
I can't see at all by what. Pretty soon they're
all passed, disappeared into the tree-line at the
end of the field, and it's quiet and still
again. And that's a pretty eerie thing to see on
an early Friday afternoon. More and more, I just
get this feeling that something is wrong around
here. Animals know stuff.
When I was just a kid, there used to be a bunch of
folks in a running club who'd all go running
together every weekend down the road past my
house. You know, for exercise. And I know it's
just me, but seeing a bunch of people running
together has always given me a funny feeling. It's
like some corner of my brain is like, "What are
they all running from?" and it's looking behind
them for the lion or the maniac or the zombie or
whatever they're running from. And so maybe what I
saw here in the field, was just an animals'
running club? But I really doubt it.
For a moment there after it was all over, I
thought I saw a tall figure in a dark cloak on the
other side of the field who was watching it go by
too. But it was just a small tree, and my eyes
were playing tricks on me. Pretty sure about that.
