I shook my head as if I could dislodge the thought out of me. It wasn’t the first time I’d thought something like that. Back when I was working at the office, on those days when it felt as if I were a ghost invisibly haunting that place, I’d purposefully cross the busy road outside without checking first. Just step out. I thought at worst I’d get a few weeks off in hospital. Maybe someone would realise something was wrong and I’d finally get help.
At best…
I tasted the tears before I knew they were rolling. Salt and iron. I wiped my cheeks with the backs of my sleeves, pulled down over my cold hands. The burn of the tears on my skin was overly familiar. I’d moved here, upped my whole life, to get away from the daily crying. And yet here I was, crying again. Maybe it wasn’t Edinburgh. Maybe it wasn’t cities. Maybe it was me. Maybe I wasn’t built for these times, like an animal that had failed to evolve with the rest of its species, left behind, proof of the changing environment. It was nature. Some got the right mutations and some didn’t. Some ducklings keep up, some get left behind. Some kids get to be pushed on the swings, and some have to push themselves. I was just one of the unlucky ones. That’s why I couldn’t escape it. It was nature—my nature—and it would be with me until I died.
Maybe a quick collision on a misty road would be kinder.
A sound broke me out from my circling thoughts.
Light rhythmic crunching came from up ahead. For a moment I thought of a mouth, snapping nut brittle between its teeth, wet half-chewed pieces tumbling down a pale chin. When I saw the faint outline of a person, I realised it was footsteps.
A shiver raced involuntarily up my legs.
A shadow was walking toward me on my side of the road. The country lanes out here were narrow, so I tucked my head down and crossed to the other side to let the stranger pass.
The shadow crossed with me.
I slowed my pace. The hairs on my arms stood on end.
Making sure to watch the figure, I crossed back to my original side of the road.
The shadow moved as well, only where my steps were slow and deliberate to communicate my intention, theirs were quick and impish, as if they were playing a game.
I stopped. They stopped.
It was so quiet I could hear my heartbeat thrum in my ears. A different kind of beat than the impulsive thunder of before. This was the tremble of a hummingbird, a rabbit scrabbling against the walls of a box trap. My throat went dry despite the dampness of the air.
Maybe they were blind, I thought, or had some other kind of sensory issue. Perhaps they’d half sensed me out here and were now waiting for some confirmation before they could continue. Maybe they were a lost tourist. I wet my lips, still salty from the tears, and summoned up my friendliest tone.
“Hello there,” I said.
My voice wavered slightly, belying the cheery tone I’d attempted.
There was no reply. They must not have heard me. I kept my eyes on the shadow and got my phone out of my pocket.
“Hello?” I said again.
After a second my voice echoed back at me from the shadow through the mist.
“Hello there,” it said.
I flinched, eyes staring, feet frozen.
“Hello?” it said again.
It was my voice! I shuffled backwards and fell onto the hedge. I tried to steady myself, but pain shot through my injured hand and I dropped my phone. I looked down to see where it went, but it had fallen into the long grass under the hedge.
Fuck fuck fuck.
When I looked up, the shadow was walking towards me.
Stuck in the hedgerow and nowhere to run and no one to call, I ducked my head and clung onto the brittle branches behind me.
As the figure approached, their face came into detail. Bright, unblinking eyes, outline of beautiful, bouncing hair, that wide, tooth-filled smile. I recognised her before I saw the crescent scar on her forehead. My neighbour was walking toward me in the mist of this lonely, quiet road. I avoided her eyes. Something deep in me told me not to look in her eyes.
I watched as her feet stepped into my personal space.
“Where are you going, neighbour?” she asked.
