The Fit Guy With The Labrador

Early morning walks in the park are adventures. Especially in winter. The air is always so fresh and clean, slightly cold as it hits your cheek. Just enough to wake you up just a little bit more. The leaves fall off the branches landing softly onto the ground. But the bare trees aren't embarrassed, they're all like that, there’s a confidence in the way nature is. Even the flowers that miraculously survive to this point are brave enough to open up to the sun that peeks in the sky. Nothing is unfamiliar or alone. The magpies are always in their twos and the squirrels chirp at each other, celebrating when they unearth a nut. Even the soil is happy. The strangers on their morning jogs with their dogs, or clutching hot coffee cups are enough to make you smile. They aren’t strangers so early in the morning. You know them through routine, through the way they greet you, whether it be with a 'hi' or 'hello' or a wave of a hand or a nod of a head, you know them. It's not like you need their names; 'fit guy with the Labrador' and 'the old lady who looks like a Doris' and 'the fashionable middle aged woman' will do for names. It's more personal in way, they're not just 'Dave' or 'Jan' or 'Georgia', they mean something, they're not just names, they're observation and personality.

Then again late night walks in the park are a different story. Especially in winter. The air lost its freshness long ago, now you just inhale the sickening smell of tobacco and cigarette smoke, mixed with a lingering stagnant stench of alcohol. The air is windy and the breeze, harsh. It seems to tug teasingly at the opening of your coat, whipping cheeks, cracking lips. Leaves that fall, screaming as they hit the ground, the bare trees saddened as the familiar crunch of a heavy drunken boot bites down, splitting the stem in half. Flowers close and hide in fear of the darkness. The birds have nestled away and chirp warnings instead of greetings, mother's calling out to their young, demanding them to come home quickly. The strangers in the park are strangers. Dangerous mysterious, drenched in secrecy. They are shadows, only just illuminated by the orange dimness of tall looming street lamps. It's personal, but in a frightening way. You recognize the orange spot of a cigarette butt underneath hoods, the outlines of beer bottles clenched tightly in people’s hands, large dogs straining their leashes, violently kept at owners sides snarling. This isn't observation, it's being alert, aware.

The night is a stranger itself. With the power to hide the identities of the simplest people, to cheat the human eye, deceive, disguise what once was. Yet is now no more.

I met a stranger in the park. Who pulled out a gun just as the sun was rising and put a bullet through my chest as the flowers began to open once more. He took off his jacket and under the hood, behind the disguise night had given him was 'the fit guy with the Labrador'. You see there is no personal with strangers, you never really know who they are. You don't know them through routine. You avoid them though routine. There is no difference between them in the light of day and the darkness of night it's all just the same in the end. It's just your choice as to whether you want to live in the light or fear the dark.