The evening I slid into another dimension (I'm back now)
It's late evening at that time of year when it gets dark and slightly chilly at eventime, and I'm going for a short brisk walk as recommended by a radio programme called 'One Small Thing' which suggests little things that you can do that are good for you without much bother.
Short brisk walks are a useful alternative for long walks that you might take in the warmer months but don't feel so much like doing when it's Arctic out there and you're lucky if the sun shines for more than 6 minutes a day, but there's a catch. You need to do several a day... Actually the programme didn't say that last bit but I was flinging myself into it. Also I'm constantly being reminded (By people who apparently genuinely believe that they haven't already told me before) that you shouldn't spend more than 20 minutes sitting at the computer without getting up and moving around, and I can spend hours sitting at the computer when I'm really hard at it so I figured when I do get a break maybe I should make it worthwhile.
For those who are interested, I just stood up, stretched my legs, and sat down again. I feel so much better...
Onwards.
This kind of power walking is called a 'constitutional', but in the armed forces 'constitutional' came to mean 'going for a wettie' (Your terminology may differ, but you know where this is going).
So there I am striding forth, late evening, dark, cold, alone on a footpath/cycle track, with slightly yellow lighting every hundred yards or so and suddenly my constitutional develops, um... army overtones. I dodge off the track, out of the light, and behind a tree, and a figure shuffles past on the path.
If you're old enough to remember the early days of Marvel comics you may remember how the Thing, or occasionally Hulk, looked when they're trying to disguise themselves as ordinary people. This was one of them. Floppy hat, raincoat, raggy trousers that just about reached the ankles, and shoes that you just knew were on their last legs.
I totally forgot about waving Willie at the wood and watched him/her/it shuffle past. Travelling at that speed, how could he have been that close behind me? He was carrying a small battered suitcase in one hand and a plastic shopping bag with something in it in the other, and he looked so weary I thought he was going to just fade away, but he shuffled on.
I eventually emerged from the pathside and stood there, but I couldn't bring myself to start walking in case I caught up and he spoke to me, probably in a James Earl Jones voice, then he stopped, shook a bit, put his bag and case down and swayed slightly. I was transfixed. Then after what seemed like 10 minutes he picked up his belongings and shuffled on again.
As I stood there a jogger passed me and headed for the figure. I watched feeling silly and slightly ashamed, but then I saw the weirdest thing.
I swear I didn't imagine it. The jogger ran right through him.