January 15, 2024:

Beautiful, Hispanic, athletic. Throws her book bag over the retaining wall before clambering over herself, sees me surprised to see her, a vision in dos trenzas, exiting the riverbed.

"I'm not a terrorist," she assures, slightly breathlessly. "Not to worry."

Laughing, I tell her, "I'm not worried. You're very charming, actually."

She laughs, gathers her book bag. "Thank you," she says, over her shoulder, walking away. "I'm only taking a shortcut."

------------

I'm thinking, something worries me.

"Hey charming terrorist," I call out. She stops, turns, raises an eyebrow. "I wouldn't cut through that wash. I see some sketchy dudes down there, sometimes." Sketchier even than me, I think to myself.

She thinks, ponders, just for a second. Nods, waves, continues toward home.

January 14, 2024:

Sheriff's department helicopter.

Circling, circling, around and around and around, broadcasting inaudible messages drowned beneath impossibly loud rotors.

"Suspect." "Black." "Armed." "Nine one one." Syllables picked out gingerly like islands in the stream of indistinguishable noise.

Nice going, Santee Sheriff's Department. With your helicopter toy and your military cosplay. Frightening every white person for miles, so that they now report every black face they encounter, and their black neighbors are unsure whether to walk or run to get indoors.

Fuckwits.

January 13, 2024:

Friendly doggy. Ageing bulldog, white, small, tongue lolling with either thirst or age. Trots ahead of his human, coming to me to say hello. "Making new friends," says his human, also elderly, as she arrives a few moments later. I smile big, pet the friendly doggy, continue on without speaking.

Groundskeeping. My age, elderly: very thin. Leaning, full weight, what there is of it, pushing with impossible effort an impossibly heavy two-handled commercial gas mower a foot or two at a time.

Middle-aged dad with ginormous bulldog, coming toward me on the sidewalk. Pulls him aside, onto the grass, up to a tree, away from me. All things considered that might be just as well.