Week Fourteen
The Morning Run
They first showed up in Union Square. Then Washington Square Park. They spread to Times Square and Central Park until you'd see them in almost every major subway station in the city. Officially, they were the "Observers of God," but everyone else called them the "Foldies" due to their ubiquitous purple blindfolds.
Along with their blindfolds, they wore earplugs all of the time and dressed in yellow. They never spoke. And if you touched one, they'd pull back and scream deathly wails. Friends would swear they'd actually spoke to one. Others would claim they'd seen them take their blindfolds off. But as the months went on and their numbers grew, no one knew anything for sure. Rumors and guesses swirled around the city about their origins. Where did they come from? Who lead them? Why did they attempt to cut themselves off - sensorially - in some of the busiest places in the city? And, like most of the off-beat characters in New York City, the more you looked into their past, the more complicated it became.
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She never went looking for trouble. But she was so mad at the world, so ready for a fight, that if trouble came her way, she said: bring it on. Sarah had signed her divorce papers five months ago. Her ex had moved out a year earlier. And the young little thing he was currently living with was nothing more than an attempt to show the world that he liked pretty things.
So fuck him. Fuck her. And right now, fuck the world.
She didn't need any of it, didn't ask for any of it, and the one thing that she did want was to punch a motherfucker in the face. Hard.
So she did what she always did. She ran. Fast and long. Each step pushed off a piece of her world, and sent it flying behind her. It was therapy.
The path down the Henry Hudson was Sarah's favorite running route in the city. She could start at 96th Street and run practically uninterrupted for seven miles down to Battery Park, then hop on the 1 subway and be back home and ready for work in under two hours. Due to the nature of her job, she was often running alone or with "third shifters" who'd either just gotten off work or were about to head in throughout the early morning hours.
It was the perfect route that split the narrow ridge of land between the Westside and the Hudson River. She'd watch as the streetlights turned off, and as the early morning shadows shortened as the sun rose slowly over the city. And best of all, if she'd lucked out with timing, she could race barges being pushed down river.
For five years, she'd never had any issues. She'd get the occasional wolf whistle, or receive a lingering stare from someone running past her, but the can of mace she kept affixed to her running shorts kept anyone from trying something stupid. In the past, she'd flip them off or tell them some naughty things they could do to their mothers, but that just seemed to make them more interested.
On the colder mornings, a fog would form over the warmer waters of the river. And on this day, the fog was cotton-thick. Luckily, Sarah knew every crack, turn, and pothole on the path. She memorized the trees, she knew when there was new graffiti, and when something was out of place, she felt it.
And on this day, through the fog, something was definitely not right. She was on the section of the running path that separated from the land and ran over the water via a bridge for several hundred meters. The early morning light was muted through the fog, but she could sense there was something out there. Her hand instinctively fell to her can of mace, as she slowed to a walk. She removed her headphones and heard a strange gurgling sound. A wet rhythmic suction noise that sounded like canned cranberry juice falling out of it's container.
She saw it hanging limply down - the long and now-unmistakable purple silk of one of the Foldies' blindfolds. Sarah followed it up with her eyes, and, through the fog, could just make out the circular monolith of an outflow pipe. A trickle of water poured out and into the Hudson through the grate of the pipe. And on the other side of the grate, through the tangled mass of a torn yellow dress, was the pale, contorted, motionless face of a woman.
Sarah jumped back in shock and almost lost her footing. She turned her head half out of horror, and half out of respect for what once was this person. She pulled her armband off her left shoulder, and with shaky hands, pulled out her phone. Immediately, she dialed 911 and reported the body.
She could hear sirens start up from somewhere deep in the concrete canyons, and grew anxious knowing she had to spend the next few minutes alone with the body as it sloshed around with the current making its way out of the grate of the outflow pipe.
Trouble had found her.
