shadow of a doubt

It is like in the horror films when the character is running and running to get away and turns back to look and see if enough distance has been gained. The running, this constant treadmill of activity is in itself good, and a solid, sensible plan is to keep moving. It is work coming in, and the pleasure in doing a job well. Friends who hold your hands to steady you as you run. It is feeling strength in the legs pumping under you, feeling again capable of getting away from it, away from it finally, away from it for good...and then you glance behind and trip over a tree root you didn't see. And you are suddenly down, raw and scraped, knees bleeding, tears pouring out of your eyes because it hurts and because you forgot to see it coming. And the tree root angry in the ground, torn because you weren't watching. And while you sit there picking the dirt out of your bleeding hands it has caught you, enveloped you again. Did you really, really think you could get away? Did you think you could just pause for a second there, lean on a tree, catch your breath, and nothing would happen? Sometimes you are foolish and silly, and sometimes you are just plain stupid.

Comments

[Poster Printing]

Your imagination is superb and I admire how you put it into writing. -Sarah-

[snozma]

Yeah. I am foolish and silly and sometimes jsut plain stupid.

This scared me a little! Tripping is frightening. Don't look down I guess. It's strange but that is always when I bite the dust--when I look behind.

[anne]

Oz, Two of my flash-nightmares are tripping while looking behind me and getting sideswiped while momentarily distracted in an intersection. And they are my biggest metaphorical blocks, too: getting caught by a bad idea BECAUSE I was checking out how well I had escaped it, and getting smashed by something I should have seen coming because I failed to look at all possible approaches. Horrible. I hope that by pointing it out to myself enough times I will learn to stop screwing up.