2001-09-05 - 3:04 a.m.

It's amazing the tricks your mind can play on you when you're biking home from work at after 1:30 in the morning. I don't think it helped that Joan (evilbitchpsychowoman) found a small string of a spider web and thought it would be funny to put my arachnophobia on MegaUltraHyperalert by describing what the spider probably looked like in the most frightening detailed…um…details she could think of. In fact, I think it's mainly her fault.

We were at work very late today, because we had workworkwork backed up from the fact that while we didn't work yesterday (paid bank holiday, woo!), business was still going on all around us, and so we had all of that missed work to make up for. And because all of the other end-of-day stuff was done but what I was doing, I was the last one out by a couple of minutes.

It started with the rhythmic scraping/thumping sound coming from the completely dark area of woods near the building by where I keep my bike. That's the same area as where the air conditioner unit for the building is, so it may have very well been that, but that didn't keep a major part of my consciousness from telling me that it *could* be a killer coming for me, and there's no reason for sticking around to find out.

Important Rule I Learned From Horror Movies #1: Never go investigate the strange noise in the woods.

And so I spun my bike around, climbed on, and rode off. Fast enough that if there *was* a killer or something coming behind me on foot I'd probably be able to get away, but not so fast that it seemed even to me like I was legitimately running away from the air conditioner. I turned on my headlight, which, in the orange light of the parking lot, managed to do absolutely nothing. I have to say that made me feel *much* better.

Down out of the parking lot, then up Route 1 I rode, into the eerie green light of the streetlight, shining along the ground, still wet from the day's rains. I turned right toward the elementary school, which looks more and more like a converted airport every time I see it. As I approached the squat gray square buildings and large gray hanger-shaped gym, something moved in the corner of my eye across the school parking lot. I looked toward it and it was gone. Then it was there again. Something quick, darting, but large enough that it would probably hurt me a lot if it got to me. But again, it was gone before I could even register that it had been there. Just then, higher, I saw something appear I hadn't noticed before. The large orange light on the front building of the school. I hadn't seen it because it was obscured by the flag, blowing in the wind. As the flag blew back up in front of it, I looked back to where the Thing had been darting across the parking lot, and saw the rather large shadow of the flag on the ground. I kind of laughed to myself, though my senses were still tingling.

I looked up at the moon through the black leaves of the passing trees, and noticed that it was decidedly not helping the situation. Big and bright, but not full any more, because that would be cliched, the moon was sitting there, behind clumped dark clouds, no longer full of rain, but preparing for their next chance to water the world. As they slowly slunk past the moon, it shone through them, lighting them up like a spot of polished silver in the center of a cloud platter thick with tarnish.

I started to look around me, wondering why I was feeling so paranoid, and I realized it was because I seemed so Alone. I mean, yeah, obviously I didn't have someone just riding along next to me. In fact, that would probably have scared me even more, considering I don't know anyone around here who bikes. But what I mean is, I just seemed really alone. Everything didn't just seem asleep it seemed dead, gone. Usually, when I get out at around 10:30/11:00 PM, there are still a couple of cars on the road, the occasional pedestrian, a few lights on in random houses. At 1:30 AM, there's nothing. Only street lights, a small light that never turns off in a tall thin tower and a few driveway lights. Overall, I just felt alone. And that's what got to me. Nothing seemed familiar, or even alive around me. Point lights atop naked masts on unmanned ships, floating dead in the water in the harbor far below. Not a living thing detectable around me but the chirping crickets. It felt immensely empty, and even more frightening as I realized it.

Then, as I approached the small bridge along the way, another motion caught the corner of my eye. I looked over and watched as a rabbit scurried into the woods. A smallish white rabbit with black spots. Spooked by something, probably, actually probably me, I watched it hurry off into the bushes a little ways away. And suddenly it all melted away. Not just because I'd finally seen something alive, but that rabbit reminded me. It reminded me of someone, not too far away, on a relative scale, who was probably, on some level, thinking of me. Or at least, she probably had been when she fell asleep, almost definitely a couple of hours before I was even on that bike. And suddenly I felt much less alone. I felt good, because I knew that even if there was nothing and no one *right here,* with me, there is someone with me somewhere.