I have my spies now, intrepid reporters, walking the streets and riding the public transportation of America’s finest cities with their eyes wide open; both in eager anticipation to – and in abject horror at – what they see.
Lately, a text message from a friend in Boston.
I wonder, does anyone else feel cheated by Mother Nature this year? As in, hello? Did we skip a season and go directly into this strange limbo before winter purgatory? Oh wait, no fall DID happen, just for one day, just long enough for me to take this photo. And then POOF gone goodbye.
This week, we head East, to another major city full of pride and lore: Boston. But it doesn’t really matter where we “are,” does it? Urban spaces everywhere host their share of the unexpected. In the wilderness I’m sure there is always the danger of an startling encounter with an animal, but at least you know what the animal wants: food. Get out of its way, if you are in the way of its food, or get out of the way, if you might become its food. Simple.
Animals can’t speak, so you are saved the verbal synapse firings necessary to connect language and motion:
“I don’t want anything to do with this tasty hamburger, I just want to get in the front door of my ridiculously isolated log cabin!”
No – just run. Not that I have never run from a human individual, in the wilds of the city. I have. People are crazy. I won’t pretend to be an expert on rabies, which I guess could be considered the animal equivalent of mental illness. I am not interested in writing about frothy mouthed dogs. Boooring. I am interested in urban survivalist methods: expecting the unexpected at all times. One can never assume that someone on the street will behave in any particular way. One must always be prepared with efficient methods of communication acceptable for metropolitan usage: no smoke signals or flare guns are safe for use inside of a convenience store.