Running in the Dark

The days are growing shorter, and it is dark when I set out for my morning run. I avoid the jogging path. I am afraid of snakes that might be slithering there. I don't want to be attacked by very small insects that fly around the path before the sun rises. 

I run around the apartment complex, past the parked cars and the buildings where most of the windows are still dark. Each lap of the complex roughly equals one lap around the jogging path (about 1/2 mile).

I pass people with jobs that start early as they walk to their cars. Middle and high school students head for the bus, their internal clocks at odds with the too early class start. 

Then there are the dog walkers. There is one cat on a leash that takes an early morning saunter around the area. A woman usually walks the cat; this morning, it was a man. The second time I lapped the cat and its owner, the cat was curled up on the branch of a small tree. The man stood looking up, the cat's leash in his hand. I said: "Looks like you have a cat up a tree." "Yes," he said, with a slight smile. Strange.