She has just completed a 5 kilometre course with others wearing the same pink shirts that proclaim they are all individually members of a group dedicated to some common cause.
Either the word women, or, ladies is printed among the other words on the shirts; but I am too polite to stare to see which, for I may be perceived as a predatory male walker.
I smile at the sky above their collective heads, instead.
There is a 10 kilometre course up ahead to complete for those who did not want to go home.
But since that is the same course run twice it hardly seems to count as a longer distance.
More of an instant action replay of the previous distance covered, I feel.
The smoker carries a plastic two-litre bottle of Coca-Cola from which
she swigs in between puffs of the fag. I can't help noticing she is a little
overweight for a runner, but resolve not to stare.
She is walking towards me and I step aside, breaking my own training
pace.
She takes this as her right for she is a veteran now, having chased the
others around five kilometres of tarmac, for a while.
They sweep past me with the determined step of the righteous achiever.
The solitary smoker is on the outskirts of the group; a weak member to be left behind by the fitter members of the pinkshirts, when her time comes.
She does not know this as they pass me by, unnoticed.
They sweep past me with the determined step of the righteous achiever.
The solitary smoker is on the outskirts of the group; a weak member to be left behind by the fitter members of the pinkshirts, when her time comes.
She does not know this as they pass me by, unnoticed.
I stopped smoking twenty years ago; but am overwhelmed with desire when
her trailing smoke reaches my nostrils.
