Facades, Canopies, Arcades

A Google search, a subway right to the exurbs, and a walk through a mall parking lot led Amanda to the start of The Possum Trail. She wanted a new route for her morning jogs, to “change things up”, and the sign featuring a cartoon possum with pitch-black eyes promised something different. The trail was several miles long, paralleled a highway, and was mostly straight, with the occasional branching path.

It was still dark when she arrived, streetlights still on, the lot empty. Dew glistened off islands of grass among the asphalt, the earthy smell mixing with the pervasive sharpness of standing oil. A tint of gray and few stars in the sky heralded the sun’s arrival. To any but an experienced morning adventurer, this scene might appear ominous.

It was March and chilly, but Amanda was already somewhat warmed up from the walk. Nevertheless, she turned to an old childhood favorite, jumping jacks, to get her blood flowing. Then she re-tied her running shoes, and was off.

Amanda started slow, using the light from an app on her phone to adjust to the trail's grade and curves: smooth black concrete, nice and wide, perfect for families, biking, strollers. Soon the sun peeked out to her left, and Amanda shut her phone off: no more electronic distraction from here on out. She had ninety minutes before she’d want to be back at her apartment, join Jake for breakfast if he was awake, then off to her mom’s church for their monthly meetup.

Then tomorrow morning, the office, the Skylight presentation. Shouldn’t be a big deal but somehow always a big deal. For the moment though, there was only concrete, trees, the sound of early-morning bird calls and the sound of her running shoes. Long ago Amanda made a deal with herself to leave family and work behind when on a run, to be present in the moment.

Look straight ahead. Feel warmth slowly extent to your fingers and toes. Breathe deep. Inhale the chill air. Focus on the steady beat of your footsteps. Compare that sound with the beating of your heart as it slowly accelerates. As you slowly accelerate. 

A long straightaway opened up ahead, light peeking through trees and slicing across the path. It was the sort of light Amanda might test in the lab. She imagined tall, thin windows, facing south to collect the most sunlight. The effect would be striking but maybe distracting to live with. Her boss, Maylene, would call the idea too fancy, not the sort of thing most homeowners wanted.

Amanda imagines her boss on the side of the path: blonde hair done-up, blue blouse, eyes that say Amanda is still too young to be good at this, that being a research architect wasn’t about art, it was about precision. The likeness of Maylene reaches out as Amanda approaches, the way she always does when requesting data or test sketches. Amanda jogs right past.

Next she sees her boyfriend Jake, his brown eyes questioning her decision to go running this early. His mouth is open, ready for another conversation circumnavigating the point he’d like to make. Maybe he wants to talk about the distant prospect of children when they haven’t even moved in together yet. She jogs right past him too.

Amanda has never done this before, imagined passing people she knows while on a run, something about this path sparked her mind. Years ago a therapist friend told her about a method for reducing stress: “Visualize a suitcase into which you can store elements from your life. Imagine placing the sources of stress into this suitcase.”

 She imagines the guy on the subway from three days ago, just staring at her, eyes dead, while she tried to ignore him for five stops. She doesn’t swerve to be further away as she flies past him. 

Next the two high school girls who came to her door yesterday, fidgeting, could barely get out their pitch for funding for a Europe trip for their musician club. Saying no had felt difficult, even though she found their plan indulgent.

Then Father Johnson, who still calls her Amanda Alanis (including her middle name) after all these years. He looks at her like she’s a lost fawn even though she came back to the city after college and still attends the same church, if not as often.

Then that friend of a friend from Facebook (Charlie?) who responded to a post of hers with “First world problems.”

Then the crowd on the subway last week, who gave her dirty looks because she didn’t give up her seat to a pregnant woman.

Then a vision of herself, sitting oblivious on a park bench, applying the Pythagorean Theorem to a T-shaped bathroom in her head, so unaware of her surroundings that she couldn’t tell there was a pregnant woman standing next to her.

And sitting next to her, that one passenger who snorted a laugh when she stood up seconds after someone else had already given up their seat.

Amanda was gaining speed, her strides lengthening while her feet pushed off faster and faster. She told herself it’s not selfish to clear people from the inside of your own mind, at least for a little while.

She passed the class of her 50-level engineering course where she was the only woman. All of them gawked at her, all of them ready with a snide comment. They’d been the last straw that pushed her away from the toughest STEM fields even though she could have handled the math and rigor.

Then she passed the red-haired star of that Hallmark Movie who's dream it was to get into exactly her field even though the movie wasn't about it at all. “Research Architect” just sounds romantic, she guessed.

Amanda’s acceleration was so gradual she hadn’t noticed she was sprinting by this point. She never ran this fast, not since track meets back in school when she entered the final stretch. She’d never felt her mind and body in such alignment, like every muscle joined in perfect concert.

She passed her mother, who asked her for the fourth time what a research architect actually did: ignorance as a weapon against her over-educated daughter.

Last in line was her primary physician, Dr. Stanwick, who pointed at his ankle and shook his head, warning Amanda not to push too hard or she might reinjure it.

She entered an area of dense forest; rocks and branches all cloaked in shadow. But the flat black straightaway looked as clear as a runway. The slap of her shoes on the pavement grew indistinct, like the sound was coming from far away, like it was struggling to keep up with her. The sunlight that snuck through the foliage appeared to bend and join her.

Something in the back of her mind warned Amanda to slow down, that she may not feel winded, but that she was in unfamiliar territory which could mean danger. Amanda pulled back slowly on an imaginary brake, drifted to a stop in front of a sign detailing plants in the area: White Pine, Beech, Fringed Bleeding Heart. That last entry, with its pictured pink flowers curving downward, felt somehow appropriate.

She was breathing fast and deep, but controlled. And her heart wasn’t racing, maybe 110 beats per minute. She used to run with a monitor and played a game where she guessed her heart-rate before glancing down. She’d resolved to cut out such distractions a month ago, the monitor now shared drawer space with her ear buds.

Amanda paced in a circle, her heart and breathing slowed. How long had she been running? Ten minutes? Twenty? Time had seemed to slow down so it was hard to tell. May as well head back, she could get a better look at the greenery she’d run past, and she promised herself a protein bar once she made the subway stop. Then later eggs and sweetbread, with or without Jake. Her stomach let out a rumble of yearning.

She approached a crossroads, the blacktop branching at a 45 degree angle. She didn’t recall any turns that sharp, perhaps she wasn’t in as mindful a state as she imagined. A sign indicated the left path led to “Nature Center” which she didn’t think she passed but wasn’t sure. 

Amanda pulled out her phone and held the power button; modern electronics would solve this minor inconvenience, though it would take a couple minutes to boot up. She leaned against the sign and pondered how peaceful it was out here, so close to a major city and not far off a main road. The trees weren’t dense but formed a high awning above her. And there was a row of them specifically planted to block the direct light of the rising sun. The early-morning here felt especially tranquil, even intimate.

Then, as if summoned by her thoughts, sounds of people approaching: male voices, joking, laughing. Amanda froze. She strained her ears to listen. 

“Can you believe they… all the way out here… cold as f… that’s all I can take…” and laughter, all the time laughter. They were approaching by the left-hand path, the way of the Nature Center, and she could see movement between the trees.

True crime scenarios flashed through her head: a body beside a path, a plastic cover, detectives swarming, caution tape. She could run up the other path. She could hide behind a tree. No, don’t attract aggression. Be confident, don’t freak out, act like everything is normal.

Teenagers came around the corner, five of them; smiling, laughing, one shoves another’s shoulder. They turn in her direction.

Amanda approaches “Excuse me. Does that path lead to the mall lot?”

A tall kid with glasses answers: “No, that’s to the science area. Mall’s the other way.”

“Thank you.”

She walked off with conscious composure. The teenagers headed back the way she’d come.

Behind her she heard one of them joke: “Year twenty twenty-four. Highway just past them trees. And she lost.”

The group exploded in laughter, and Amanda chuckled quietly with them. She’d been so scared, but would her heart have set to racing if it had sounded like white kids approaching? And her own skin wasn’t any lighter than a couple of them.

Amanda shook her head at her own reflexive bigotry. High school students out early for some homework at a science center, and she imagined murder scenarios when she hears them coming. At least she hadn’t screamed.

She had some time to ponder it all as she walked back up the path, recollecting some of the people she’d left behind.