It Happened in NYC’s Central Park

By Blasopal

One day this Summer, Jose Marcus was going to Central Park with his friend Johnny Bertrand, as they used to do it every other day, after work. Around a quarter to five in the afternoon, José got a call from Johnny; he couldn’t accompany him that day, because something unexpected had happened at home. So, Jose decided to go to the park alone; it wasn’t the first time, anyway.

Jose had been jogging for twenty minutes, when a young man in front of him, wearing expensive running clothes, as well as a fancy pair of sneakers, caught his attention. But it wasn’t the guy’s outfit or shoes that triggered his curiosity, but the fact he ran faster at times until he was himself behind a beautiful girl. He stayed in that position for as long as possible; then, he started to slow his pace, distancing from her about a hundred yards apart. Jose saw him doing this three times, so he thought that girl was a possible victim of a bad guy.

Jose’s curiosity piqued, and his paternal protective instinct made him decide to do a similar maneuver, placing himself behind that guy, then distancing from him some fifty or sixty yards. He did that several times, for forty-five minutes.

Soon, that game of chasing and backing out, started to take a toll on Jose: His heart beats got faster, as well as his breathing. He felt like his legs couldn’t support his weight. You guessed it right. José was suffering something well known as Fatigue!

Jose said to himself: Hey, you’re getting old, that’s a fact; you better accept it”. That thought was ponding in his head. José used to walk long distances on mountain trails, for several hours, most of the times more than five hours; then he’d stop for only a couple of minutes, just to sip some water, or to contemplate a beautiful landscape. José was only thirty-nine years old, but after he got a triple bypass, his daily routine had changed. Today he’d been jogging for less than two hours, and he was getting a little tired. A little tired?

Apparently, his curiosity wasn’t going to be satisfied. He was about two hundred yards behind that guy, who was only forty or fifty yards away from the girl! José had another concern: The young pals were going to disappear from his sight, because they were approaching a curve that leads to a bifurcation of the road: The left road takes you to a small lake, and the right one leads you to one of the park’s exits on Central Park West.

Jose tried to regain his pace speed, but felt his legs were getting heavier, and again, started to slow down. Suddenly, OMG! he lost visual contact with that couple he was interested in!

Finally, José reached the end of the curve, and voila! The couple was seated on a big rock on the right side, where the road splits. They were chatting like old, good friends. José tried to catch a decent pace when he was about to pass by them. And this is what he heard:

Those voices were getting weaker and weaker and vanished as he moved further away. A soft smile appeared on José’s face; then he started looking for a bench where to take a rest, to make sure he could go back home, too.

       BLASOPAL

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