Bad Habits/Home

I have some bad habits. Lately, I've been walking home late, late at night. Before the sun is awake and while the moon is napping, I am walking. Walking, Walking, Walking. I left at 3:30am. I have half an hour to walk before I get home. Great. The streets are dark and lonely--brilliantly lonely. Not a soul is in sight. Not even a motor vehicle operated by a soul. Everything around me is black as can be and the only sounds are of the snow crunching beneath my feet.

It's eerily creepy. Actually, that's putting it lightly. It is very creepy. It's as if there was some massive epidemic in the city and only I have survived, walking slowly in the wake of some fatal killer. Yellow lights flash warnings. I quicken my pace. To my left, the belligerent light of the secondary school sputters like a strobe, flashing light frantically. And then dies. Light. Dead again. I keep walking. I can see my breath and it is the only moving thing in sight.

Every fifty feet I throw a glance behind me to make sure that no one is behind me. Fifty feet. Glance. Fifty feet. Glance. This is not a good night to make friends. The streets get swallowed up in darkness and I turn towards the University of Klaipeda. Street lights dimly throw their rays at me. Everything is an odd shade of yellow. It looks, perhaps, as if when God was making the colors, he got distracted when he was making yellow and he accidentally added too much. I don't know what would distract God long enough for him to lose his focus, but it must be very interesting. I mutter prayers as I walk.

I pass the University of Klaipeda. To my right I cast a long glance and upwards is bright light being thrown generously upon a large clock. Time is running out. I surely hope not. I quicken my pace. The cars on the street are deserted. Some are completely caked with snow, seemingly unmoved for days, perhaps weeks. In the distance I hear a megaphone booming from a truck. Not good. I imagine, at best, they are looking for survivors in this post apocalyptic world. At worst, they are looking for renegades. That could be me.

I quicken my pace. Yellow lights gleam around. Dimly radiant. The houses around me lay in a daze. Not a sound. I cross under the bridge that marks the halfway point. And I see my first particle of life. A taxi drives by. I look on and I see the driver looking at me. We make eye contact. He watches me until he drives out of sight. I quicken my pace.

I am now in the city. There is still no life. I force myself to glance into a shop window. I can't not look in. But if I see any movement inside, my pounding heart will explode. I tear my eyes away from the window in hopes that what I don't see won't bother me. Blocks pass on. Streets become alleys. Streetlights begin to fade out, every 10 meters. Every 20 meters. Every 30 meters. I quicken my pace.

Two blocks and I'm home. The sky shows no sign of giving way to the morning. Fog fills the streets. My feet shuffle over cobblestone streets. I bet each stone carries a story. But in all honesty, right now, I don't even care. One block. Lights become simply a vague dream. Shadows fill the alleys. Fifty feet. Home. Thirty feet. Home. Steps. Door.

I have been forming bad habits lately. But they give me time to think. But I already think too much. It doesn't matter how fast you walk or how long it takes to arrive there. It's just good to be home.