Unrest

                 The day was stormy and gloomy. I broke from my usual morning routine. I liked to walk in the park downtown. It had beautiful trees, shrubs, and a large creek that ran through the densest part of the vegetation. There was a bridge with a walking path and a handrail that I liked to lean on and watch the water pass beneath. The park was a part of me.

That day, though, the damp fog of early morning rolled out in waves, and it felt good; it invigorated me. I started for the park, but instead of turning in, I kept going and walked downtown. I passed a bus stop where a woman sat on the bench, drinking steaming liquid from a to-go cup, her crossed legs bouncing impatiently as she checked her watch. She was young, maybe 25 with tightly curled brown hair that matched her warm brown eyes. She looked nice, so I gave her a smile and a nod before looking forward again.

That was when I spotted him. Tall. Red hair. Uneven gait.

                 I felt a zing of recognition shoot through my brain. His dark eyes were looking forward, and his pale lips quirked up slightly at the corners. White earbuds hummed into his ears. He didn’t seem to notice my overly interested gaze as he walked by, his arms stiff at his sides. I knew him. I did. I couldn’t place how I knew him, but there was no denying the recognition that squirmed like a pile of worms in my gut.

                 I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk as he walked past, turning to watch the bus pull up to the stop. He followed the woman from the bench up the steps to find a seat. The bus pulled away, but my feet were glued to the pavement. I watched its progress all the way down the road and around the corner.

                 My brain worked at the question of who the man was for the rest of the day, but no answer presented itself. I tried to ignore the question, focus on other things instead, but my brain simply circled back around to the question again.

                 The next morning, I wandered in the park for a while, but without really making a conscious decision, I found myself back downtown. The morning was chilly, and overnight the fog had condensed into gloomy clouds that pouted above the city. I could feel the promise of rain in the atmosphere. Up ahead, the same woman sat on the bus stop bench, to-go cup in hand. I recognized the blue scarf she’d been wearing the day before.

                 I walked past, studiously focusing my gaze ahead. There, a block down, was the man. He wore a black jacket and blood red shoes. Again, my stomach writhed. My brain whirred. I knew him. I watched him approach, arms hanging stiffly, eyes up. I looked into his eyes. A piece of a memory floated up.

A girl. A scream. Water.

I blinked, and the memory was over. As before, he walked past without acknowledging me and boarded the bus behind the woman. The bus left.

                 I doubled back and sat on the bus stop bench, letting my mind work over the question that had haunted me for the past 24 hours. Those eyes. That small smile. Water.

                 When the bus stopped and opened its doors, I got on with the two or three other people who had gathered there. I found a seat near the front where I could look out the windshield. My eyes scanned the sidewalks and looked in the shop windows, searching for a tall man with red hair. I had nearly given up when I recognized the woman from the bus stop bench.

She was walking out of a shop, her hair lifting slightly in the breeze. The bus shuddered to a stop, and the doors swung open. The shop door nearly closed behind the woman, but it was pushed open again by the very man I’d been looking for.

                 I got up from my seat and rushed out the door. The bus pulled away, and I lost sight of the man and the woman. I crossed the street, jogging in the direction I’d seen them go. Ahead, I could see familiar red hair bobbing slightly above the crowd. I slowed, falling into step just behind a small group of giggling tourists, careful not to lose sight of the man’s hair.

                 He walked to the next intersection and then veered off to the right into a park. My park. I followed.

                 The crowd thinned, and I could now see that the man was following the woman from the bus stop. She looked backward and smiled awkwardly at him. I couldn’t see the man’s facial expression, but I watched the smile on the girl’s face falter and then disappear. She turned forward and increased her pace.

                 The man walked faster.

I walked faster.

I looked around the park. It looked the same, but it didn’t feel the same. It felt ominous. The clouds that had been steadily building all afternoon broke loose and released a torrent of rain. The man’s blood red shoes padded down the walking path like a drumbeat that kept speeding up. My heartbeat spiked as I realized that I had heard that sound before. I had been here in this park…Before. Before…what?

                 The woman turned back again when she reached the path that turned off toward the river, but the man was right behind her. She tried to cry out, and he wrapped one of his arms around her and covered her mouth. He jerked her sideways and down the path that led to the river. It was only then that I realized that I knew what that felt like. I remembered what that felt like. I saw the scene play out with a different girl. Me. I could practically feel the calloused hand scratching the sensitive skin on my face as he pulled me down the path, the panic that squeezed my heart and robbed my breath.

                 I followed, crying out.

                 “No! Someone help!”

                 No one heard me. The man didn’t look back. Neither did the woman.

                 “Let her go!” I screamed again, reaching out to push the man.

                 He lurched forward, but he didn’t release the woman. He looked down now for the thing that had tripped him, but he did not stop, and he never looked directly at me. He kept moving forward toward the water. We were right by the bank of the river.

                 I rushed up beside him, hooking my foot in front of his, pushing at the same time. The man tripped, lurched sideways, and lost his grip on the woman.

                 She stumbled, too, but she quickly caught herself, struggling to pull her arm free from the man’s tight grip. She let out a blood curdling scream. My heart beat faster. I kicked at the man’s arm as hard as I could. He cried out in pain, pulling the woman’s arm downwards at a painful angle, but she resisted and wrenched it free from his grip. His hand was still clenched around her blue scarf. The woman stumbled back down the way she’d come, running to the main walking path.

                 The man shook his head in surprise, eyes wide. He dropped the scarf and tried to stand up, but I pushed him back down from behind. He fell, tumbling off the path next to the river.

                 The memory that tried to break through earlier that day rushed into my mind in vivid detail... the entire scene.

I was jogging in this park. It was early morning. The man with the red hair followed me, grabbed me, and forced me down to the water. Right here. He knocked me down to my knees, then put his rough hands around my neck and shoved my face down into the water. It was so cold. I struggled, panicked, tried not to inhale. It was no use. I couldn’t hold my breath any longer. Water burned in my lungs. I was shocked that something so cold could burn so hot inside of a person. Then, the pain stopped. The fear stopped. It was over.

                 The memory faded, and I looked down to see my hands at the back of the man’s neck, his red hair floating beneath the water. I let go, and the man bobbed there, lifeless. I could stop searching. I could stop remembering. It was over, and I was finally at peace.