The One Where I Run Away Lop-Sided

So, I’ve just come out of a shop on Hermitage Road, in Hitchin. I brush against a guy who’s in his late teens/early twenties and is with a group of his friends, consisting of boys and girls of around the same age. I don’t recall offering an apology or even an acknowledgement that I brushed against him. Which may be the reason for the abuse I’m about to receive.

I’m ahead of the group now, heading up the top of Hermitage Road and I’m almost at the traffic lights, at the junction with Queen Street/Walsworth Road. I’m aware that the guy I brushed against is speaking, a few paces behind me, but I can’t make out what he’s saying yet. I increase the pace of my walking and start along Walsworth Road. The direction in which I’m walking reminds me of the route I used to take when I walked home from school.

Now I can hear what the guy is saying and he’s basically calling me a loser for not apologising to him when I brushed against him and that I should turn around and acknowledge that he’s behind me. Of course, I don’t turn around and instead try to speed up again. It’s now that my walking becomes lopsided. It’s as if I’m a car and both my driver-side tyres are flat. I’m listing so badly to the right that if I don’t correct my stance, I continually crash against the rugged five-foot high ,ivy-covered stone wall that runs alongside the pavement. I end up walking with a very pronounced lean to the left; in fact I’m virtually leaning at 45 degrees to my left. Obviously, walking like this attracts more abuse from the group behind me and so I start to jog and then to flat-out run. Well, I say flat-out but suddenly my body becomes so heavy that, even though I’m putting everything into it, my efforts at running see me making as much progress as I would have made if I’d have carried on at a walking pace. The guy behind me shouts that if I had any balls then I’d turn around and face him.

I stubbornly refuse to turn around and put more effort into my lopside running and I eventually reach the church at the junction with Highbury Road. I dart (as much as I can dart) right into the gravel-lined entrance to the church. Only now I’m hardly making any forward progress at all. I grab the wrought iron gates that are forever open at this entrance and use them as an anchor to stop myself going backwards. With an almighty heave, I drag myself forward. Both my feet leave the ground and and I fly forward about six feet. Taking this as a good sign, I adopt this method and take multiple leaps, which take more and more effort with every attempt. I am, however, making progress and the barracking from behind is beginning to get more distant. I get through the church grounds and end up on Highbury Road, opposite the junction with The Avenue.

Then I wake up.

I think there’s a bullying aspect to this one, even though it’s borne out of my refusal to acknowledge that I brushed against someone. Why I’m running lopsided, I couldn’t say. The route is familiar as it’s the route I used to take every time I walked home from Hitchin Boys’ School, during my time there. So maybe there’s a shooldays aspect to all of this. Oh, I don’t know, but I might try that lopsided running thing at the gym tonight.