( This piece contains swears and mild violence )
Tricked by the sun into setting out on my run wearing shorts and a vest, I push myself to move faster. I never know what to wear when I go running at this time of year, the joys of British weather.
A kilometre into my run and I no longer care about what I am wearing. The first kilometre is always the worst, it takes a while for my body to remember that it can do this, and I am not going to die. Probably not.
Today’s route takes me along the Innocent Railway Line, which cuts behind Duddingston Loch and some posh golf course. It’s a hay fever hellhole at the moment, but it’s nice to be off the roads. A man comes into view and at once my woman’s radars squawks.
(Women will know the radar I am talking about; we all have one, it alerts us to potential threats and dangers. These radars start to develop when we reach our early teens, sometimes when we are younger – the when doesn’t really matter, it’s just a sad fact that all women have one. There comes a point when being female has its disadvantages.)
He’s squatting at the edge of the path, facing the wall with his hood pulled tight around his head. It isn’t warm, but there is no reason for his hood to be obscuring his face. He’s half hidden in the bushes – everything about him seems off.
He’s on my side of the path, so I cross to my right and speed up, not wanting to linger near him. I check behind me to see if anyone else is around, but there isn’t. It’s just me and him. I turn my music off and keep running.
As I pass him, he slowly turns and rises to his feet, casting his eyes over me. My skin crawls, I feel like meat. I force myself to move faster, not liking the look on his face. Five meters grow between us, then ten. I keep glancing back. He hasn’t moved, but he’s still staring at me. I don’t turn my music back on, I need to stay alert, I don’t want him suddenly sprinting up behind me.
I turn again and he’s smiling. There’s an edge to that smile, its cold, blade sharp and it doesn’t reach his eyes.
‘No need to run so fast love, I wouldn’t touch you,’ his voice is coarse, thick with threat. ‘You wish I would rape you.’
I’m sprinting, my feet pounding the tarmac, and he starts to laugh, enjoying my fear.
‘You wish I’d lick …’
I’m done. I stop. I turn to face him, red faced, sweat stinging my eyes and with a flick of my hand I send him spinning up into the air. Not gently, his arms and legs flail wildly. He shouts, not words, just noisy barks of fear.
This feels good.
I slam him against a huge oak tree, he smashes his way through the branches and thuds meatily into the trunk.
‘Fucking bitch!’ He bellows.
Again, I batter him into the tree and this time something cracks, it’s a moist sound – his ribs perhaps? A smile sweeps across my face. He’s making a lot of noise, so I spin him like a Catherine wheel. He vomits, bile and blood splatter the ground narrowly missing me.
‘Please,’ he sounds piteous now. His earlier menace is gone.
I stop his head long spin and he hangs untidily in the air, like a puppet whose master doesn’t quite know how to pull the strings. I savour the moment nibbling the inside of my cheek as I consider him.
‘Please,’ he repeats his plea.
No. Not today. I shoot him up into the air, higher and higher and just when I am about to lose my control over him, I snap my fingers. His body rips apart. I fling my arms wide and his remains fly in opposite directions, one half landing in the loch with a splash, the other somewhere out of sight on the golf course.
The sweat has cooled on my body and my muscles have begun to stiffen. I turn my music back on and restart my run.
© Juliet Robinson 2023, all rights reserved
Mind Burble
I wrote this piece a year ago after bumping into the gentleman who ends up all over the local landscape whilst out on a run. I decided to share it today as on my run this morning a cyclist felt the need to pull his bike into my path, forcing me to a stop whereupon he inform me to get a better running bra.
By the time I had processed what he had said he was on his way. Firstly I was wearing my best bra, secondly he had no need or indeed right to approach me like this. Anyway, it made me want to share my I Wish piece again.
This short story went into the anthology that Janet Armstrong, Shabs Rajan and I put together. Which is available in print from Amazon or on Kindle Unlimited. We hope to put together another collection at some point its fun to do and a good way to use stories that otherwise seem to end up sitting in a folder on our computers.
A Year of Time 