On To Mile Two
As the soccer fields arrived on Ben’s left as he continued west, the lack of shade allowed the mid-day sun to cause Ben to begin to sweat a bit. He wasn’t worried, though, because he knew that after the next turn, the breeze would be in his face to cool him down.
In contrast to the rest of the park that was full of summer fun, the soccer fields were nearly empty. The white, goal frames were tucked into a corner of the field, their nets apparently removed for safe keeping. With no one around, one of the neighbors used this as the opportunity to play fetch with his German Shepherd. Armed with a launcher, he would fling a ball, gaining some extra distance as the launcher would spring forward. His dog would sprint across the field, unable to catch the ball in mid-air. Every time Ben saw the two of them, he thought, “Shouldn’t the dog be on a leash?” More than that, though, Ben wished that their dog, Milo, knew how to play fetch.
As Ben rounded the corner to travel south again, the refreshing breeze wrapped around Ben’s face, and he was coming up on loop number two. Up ahead were more yellow daisies, and Ben took out his camera phone once again. In another burst of attempting to be creative, he knelt onto the ground trying to capture an image of the flowers from below.
Normally Ben wouldn’t check what time it was as he knew two loops were easy to fit in to his lunch hour, but knowing he stopped a few times to take pictures on this trip, he figured he would be short on time. He had to make the decision to cut his walk short, or be a little late coming back from lunch.
In his head, Ben wondered why he cared so much. “Really, if I were five or ten minutes late from lunch, would it matter? Would there be any repercussions?” He wasn’t on a time clock, his work was getting done, but for whatever reason he always felt that people were watching him, keeping score, even though they weren’t.
As he finished taking a few pictures and continued back towards the tennis courts, another ball came sailing his way. “Hasn’t she gotten any better since 30 minutes ago?”
He thought about trotting to get the ball and throw it back on the court, but he knew that it wouldn’t be the last, wayward ball.
Like most walks, the second loop wouldn’t be as interesting as the first since nothing really changed in the park after 20 minutes. The same nannies would still not be paying attention to the children under their care, there wouldn’t be any new flowers that just bloomed, and Ben put his phone away figuring he would pay more attention to his walking.
Turning left and to the east, this time he noticed the sledding hill and wondered, as he always did when he looked at the hill, if it was just dirt or if it was used for garbage dumping years ago. He surmised it was just dirt since there weren’t any methane vents, but also wondered, even if it were landfill dirt, when the hill was created they probably dumped any dirt they could dispose of. Even with the vague possibility of contamination, Ben would watch people in better shape than he was, running up and down the hill. The occasional grade-schooler would roll down the slope, and Ben wished he could walk up the hill without feeling like his heart was going to explode out of his chest, and then roll down it like the grade schoolers.
Maybe some day he could climb up the hill, but not today.
As he made his way back around the marsh and approached the ball fields, some grade school boys were now on the baseball diamond shagging fly balls. As he watched, Ben noticed that none of them were very good. Watching kids on a baseball diamond, however, always took Ben back to Madison Park near his old house, the makeshift baseball diamond where he would play ball with his friends, and the time he ran into a tree trying to catch a fly ball.
Those thoughts, though, would fade quickly. Ben knew he was running a little late and decided to cut his walk short.
Instead of continuing east, Ben took a left in front of the field house, walked past the water park with kids getting soaked and nannies ignoring them, and started down the path next to the parking lot back to his car.
There weren’t many cars in the lot, and he could see his blue sedan up ahead. “Shit,” he thought, “I forgot to start the car.”
Ben always flaunted to Amy that his car had a remote starter and hers did not. The problem was that he usually forgot about the remote start so it really was just for bragging rights. Since he changed his route there would be no breeze for him to walk towards, and also forgetting to start his car would mean Ben would be a little more sweaty getting back to the office.
Accepting his gross fate, Ben knew there wasn’t anything he could do about it at this point. To his left he saw kids rolling down the sledding hill, and a woman was walking towards him. He figured she was probably in her mid-twenties, but Ben was horrible at guessing ages so for all he knew she could have been fifteen or fifty.
As the woman got closer, Ben forgot about his annoyance with himself for not starting the car. He flashed a big smile and gave a cheerful, “Good morning!”
What Ben didn’t know is how much Laura needed that smile.