Walking Stories

I live along the Bruce Trail.  The route passes along the road in front of my house and in the summer and fall, I often see people hiking along it.

While planting tulip bulbs, I spotted a man and woman along the trail. I assumed a young couple.  The man was lagging behind, dragging his feet.  The woman strode twenty feet in front of him, her boots spitting up the gravel on the road. It has started to rain about thirty minutes previous and she was soaked, her hat blown from her head.  He had his hood up, his chin down.  They had argued, I guessed, and I began to wonder about their argument – what was it about?

Had the hike been the woman’s idea or the man’s? Had one of them told the other that it was a bad day for a hike, the forecast calling for steady rain although it was still warm for autumn?  Or perhaps the rain was a catalyst for a deeper disagreement.

I imagined what this might be.

The man had asked the woman to marry him and she had paused.  In the moment of the question, she realized that she did not want to spend the rest of her life with him. His habit of meticulously rinsing the dishes before putting them into the dishwasher overly irked her.  But could she really say no, to a man she had spent the last year of her life with, over dishing washing technique?

He had caught the pause like a baseball short stop.  His mood had turned and he had stuffed the ring back into his pocket.  She stuttered out words without thought. She had been surprised, she needed some time to think, but the words were wrong. He liked to surprise her and she had realized this is what she dreaded. She was a planner; he liked to do things in the spur of the moment, like this wretched hike and the proposal.  They didn’t have the money to get married, she thought bitterly, stomping away from him.

Or perhaps the argument had been about something else completely. I studied the retreating backs of the hikers more closely.  They were both long legged, wearing high tech rain pants and coats.  Hiking boots, looking new.  The man had a GPS on his pack strap.  Late twenties, I guessed at the ages.  The man’s boots did not fit properly; his feet ached and he could feel the blisters forming on his heels.  She had insisted on the hike, dragging him out of the warm bed and trying to entice him with leaf colour.  She had calculated that today would be the perfect day to enjoy the changing colours of the leaves on the trees.  But it was calling for rain, he moaned.  Light rain, she corrected, pulling on her wool soaks.

Now, the man paused on the road, wondering if he could call a cab from his cell phone, to pick him up and take him away from this miserable hike. Away from this life. He didn’t know how his life had lead him to be here, on a gravel road surrounded by farms and with cold rain dripping off the lip of his hood.  She was mad, blaming him for destroying her image of this hike and nothing he could say would make her happy.  He took a long breath. Then bent his head and continued to plod after the woman.

Or perhaps, I speculated with a sudden spurt of imagination, they had argued over the identification of the small red headed dragon that lived under the broken bridge, fifty yards back.  She had insisted it was a red-bellied marsh stalker, although a little north of its normal range. He had thought it was a common redheaded cave dragon, although he had not gotten a good look at it, since it had swiftly darted through the cedars on their approach.  She was mad because despite her advance degree in biology, he still didn’t trust her superior skill at dragon identification. I could have told them that she was correct, but what if they had really argued over the marriage proposal? They might think me odd.

The couple disappeared from view.

I returned to my planting and waited for the next hikers to appear along the road; for another story to spin from my imagination.