Like a few months ago, I stayed up late reading the new Hunger Games prequel because it was due the next day, and I finished it like just after one-thirty a.m., and since I live like under two blocks from the local library and it was a peaceful night, I decided to walk over and slip it in their bookbox, both so it would be there when they opened up the next day so they could flip the book and get it out to the next person on the waitlist as fast as possible, and because I treasure the freedom to walk around at night like that, since that became dicier and dicier in the city that I used to live in right before I moved, though I always had enjoyed doing that.
(I mean, really, yeah, it's late, but the one local bar that stays open until 2am in the downtown area would have just been closing up then if they hadn't closed early that night, so it's not like my being out then was beyond the utmost range of typical human activity.)
Though, right before I leave, I not only put my keys in my pocket, but also my pepper spray, since I do always carry that with me now, around here, after my various random run-ins with weird and threatening local homeless people.
And, anyways, it's very calm and peaceful, and I walk up the deserted gravel and step out of the alley where my cottage is and cut across the street towards the intersection, and then what do I see but someone with their back towards me farther up, with a heavy winter coat on like they're carrying their winter-time possession with them, heading down the sidestreet there.
And, that spooks me, because it's almost 2am, and there's *never* homeless people out there like that at that time of night, at least in that part of the college town that I live in.
(So many homeless people go to bed with the sun and rise with the sun, so they're not up at random times like that!)
But, since they were moving away from my path of movement, I turn up the street towards the library and move on, and then a glint catches my eye like a block-and-a-half up by the hedge of the local library, and I see the shadow of a bulky man turn around with this long thin metal thing like a pole resting up on his shoulder, and he kind of roots at something there with his foot and then swivels around and moves back across the street towards the porch of a local government building there.
And, that kind of spooks me even more, and I test my pepper spray out, and I shoot a stream of it out and it hits the leaves of a tree there, that grows in front of a local church.
And, I move a few more paces, and I consider going to the local bookbox from another direction, but I decide everything is very weird and it's just not worth it, to risk being trapped by someone with a long metal pole, in an area where it's mostly parking lots and just one house right there and one house more distant than that, since no-one would necessarily hear you if you got in trouble and you had to start to scream.
So, I keep my pace the same and I kind of loop around to the other side of the street to begin going home, and what do I see but a bit up that one guy in the winter coat, walking at a diagonal to beyond the library, only, it's not as far as he should be, he either cut through a far alley and then began moseying that way, or he was walking in erratic loops, or he doubled back towards me, then turned around and went in another direction when he saw me changing my movements.
And, I turn around and walk home, and I don't look back where you can see me looking back, but I do kind of move a little diagonal a bit now and then to where I can turn my head just the slightest and see if anyone is following me -- they're not -- and then I walk up a half-block further than I normally do, to turn in and loop around and go to my cottage a different way than the way that I had come, so no-one would be able to easily track my movements and surprise me.
And, although while I'm awake at night I usually leave my front door open with the screen door closed and locked but with its sliding glass window open for air, I make sure to close the front door, that night, in case anyone was around.
For a while, I've had this living nightmare, that when I go to close my bedroom or kitchen window at night -- I keep them open to let the cool night air in -- that I'll walk up to them and find someone just standing there and staring at me.
. . .
(I've started to change my behavior at night, now, where now I consistently don't leave my front door open and screen door locked like i used to, but instead I close and lock my front door.)
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