Flash Fiction #1

Word count 488

My boots left prints on the wet pavement and I skirted the piles of sodden leaves with regret, navigating my daily obstacle course. Traffic whispered on all sides but my head phones were firmly cradling my ears, music turned up dangerously high. I heard somewhere that it ruins your hearing, but mine’s shot to hell anyway.

My gaze caught hazards rather than really taking anything in and snagged on a man approaching from the other direction. We occupied our discreet halves of the pavement, maintaining that studied and self-conscious gaze that avoided social interaction, however minor. He had a woolly hat and a coat, nondescript with a beard, carried a plastic bag beside him. I was always wary of people with an unlabelled shopping bag that seemed to only have one bottle in, especially so early that they couldn’t be on the way to a party. I always encountered drunks on my way home, guiltily shuffling along with a bag of bottles or, worse, swigging openly from gold and white cans outside a corner shop. We all generally kept our shames private, but I had been approached before.

My fellow walker and I passed each other and I glanced back, a nervous habit to make sure he wasn’t following me. Normally I am greeted by a retreating back, but this time was different. He had stopped still in place and had turned back to look at me. I was still walking and whipped my head round to fix my eyes on the path ahead.

That clash of anxiety, the meeting of gazes, the unspoken social contracts with their endless clauses and interpretations - I couldn’t bear to try and guess why he had taken that inexplicable action. Who stops in the street and watches the person he passed walk away? Apart from me, I mean? My spine crawled with one possibility while secret pride shamed me with the other. Not unattractive, or so I am assured, but hardly the sort to make people stop and look in the street. It is, of course, always flattering to be considered attractive, but the other blade of that double-edged sword revolts me. The unpleasant comments and unwelcome attentions, the cruel hilarity of men who make my skin creep inviting themselves to view me as their object and a barely desirable one at that. It’s not commodification - people pay for commodities, they don’t assume ownership before the bartering starts.

Perhaps he had taken it as an invitation? The thought made me quicken my pace and my mind moved to the usual precautions: walk home a different way, don’t take the most direct route, check for people following, feel reassured that I’m wearing heavy and comfortable boots and try to remember my martial arts lessons. The everyday stuff, you know?

I ran for the traffic lights and felt some comfort in the river of cars and lorries blocking the path behind me.