For the last few months I've spent the vast majority of my nights aimlessly roaming the streets. The humidity during the day, with the additional heat caused by GPU mining, has made my bedroom quite uncomfortable. My odd passion for crypto mining results in simply dealing with the heat rather than doing something about it.
In addition, I enjoy walking at night. I enjoy the silence, the darkness of the night and the small illuminated space found underneath the occasional lit streetlight. The air is fresh, the humidity has left, and all that remains is me in the empty streets.
I have done this many times throughout the years, I have grown to feel safe and at peace in the night, very rarely does something spook me and have me feeling particularly uncomfortable to the point in which I feel I should return home to the safety of GPU warmth and four walls. I find my mind clears outside of those four walls, observing the surroundings and roaming with no set destination in mind.
However, last night was different. I walked for a small period of time through the streets, the same streets I typically walk through during the night. Some are long stretches of road cloaked in the darkness of the night, some are small, bendy roads illuminated every few metres ahead. I walked for a while, and spent some time at a bench, just underneath some light. I do this often, too. I sit and enjoy the silence, not really having anything in mind.
I'm a very observant person, so I notice things quite quickly. Whether it's just composition in the area, or the behaviour of others nearby. It comes in handy from time-to-time, and last night happened to be one of those times.
I sat up from the bench and proceeded down a long stretch of road, one of many cloaked in the darkness, as I mentioned. At the very end of the road there is a store, closed, but filling the intersection with light; in front was a silhouette, a male figure walking in the middle of the road. I noticed their steps were heavy, and thought it was strange -- though I also thought of how I must have looked to them, a figure walking through the middle of the road in the dead of night as well.
I proceeded to walk on the path, somewhat getting out of the way of the upcoming silhouette, more so out of politeness rather than discomfort. After all, I see people and cars go by often enough during my walks, never before have I experienced anything off.
With the darkness, I often use the light of my phone's torch to guide me through bumpy pathways in attempt to avoid stumbling into the ground. As the silhouette was just about to enter the light, still walking in the middle of the road, the first thing to come to my attention was their speech: "He slashed me across the face. I'm going to slash him across the face." It caught me off-guard, though the real surprise was the glistening of something by his waist, held firmly in his right hand: a long, pointed machete. Immediately after, I noticed that the person was only wearing their boxers.
My natural reaction to whatever I had just witnessed was to keep walking, but to stick closer to the cars, to quickly obscure the view of where I'd gone. From what I'd seen, the person didn't even acknowledge my existence. They seemed determined to find a particular person, and they knew who they were searching for. That said, I didn't want to stick around. I kept looking back to see whether I could find any movement that would indicate the person turning back towards me, and quickly took a shortcut into a small field of community-grown plants.
This small field cut through to another main road, with much more light, however the field itself contained no light whatsoever. It seemed like the best idea: get out of sight immediately and become one with the darkness and silence of the night. Unfortunately, this was in the opposite direction of my home, but I was back in a more well-lit area in which I can see my surroundings clearly. Light seemed like the best idea, rather than making any quick actions that could result in either seeming suspicious to the strange, clearly determined person, or panicking.
I sat by a bench under the light for a few minutes, waiting for the suspense to die down a little, thinking of when it would be safe to walk back in the direction in which I had seen the person, assuming there must be a moment in which they'd have left and gone in a different direction. I decided to get up from the bench, feeling incredibly curious but ready to walk back into whatever it was I had just witnessed so that I could return home -- I guess in a slasher film I'd be one of the first to perish as a result of pure idiocy in the form of running at the danger.
As I began to walk back, I heard shouting, the clashing of metals, and someone running directly towards me. At that point I'd realised I was done trying to play things a bit smart, and I ran down another road into the darkness, hiding behind some cars in a driveway. Looking underneath the cars into the streetlight in which the person stood momentarily before roaming the area. My curiosity was at an all-time high: was this individual a threat to me or were they engaged in some other type of feud? Was I about to get hacked to death in some stranger's driveway? I genuinely did not know. Somehow I remained calm and curious.
More uncertain as to whether someone else was in danger or had already been injured, I made the decision to call the police when it was safe to do so. I gave them the worst possible details of the event, as a result of being surrounded by darkness and not really sticking around to discover more context regarding the situation that was unfolding in front of me. I felt as if I was caught up in the middle of some apocalyptic event, where the world was now empty and silent, accompanied by some crazed lunatic with not a single care for the world's former laws and societal foundations.
While safe in a nearby friend's house, what ensued was a near two-hour search from the police via both cars and a helicopter of the surrounding area. The sound of the helicopter thumping away into the air above the homes. The search resulted in nothing worthy. Eventually, once things had died down, I made the decision to make the walk home. Now around 4AM, wielding a hammer in my left hand with a torch in my right hand, I walked in the middle of the street, slowly, alone, and feeling some type of power-trip as a result of the adrenaline. Knowing full-well that I'd probably lose against a crazed machete-wielding nutcase.
I returned home, fell asleep for a few hours before having the police turn up at my house to ask additional questions regarding the event. I have no idea what happened last night, or what will happen now that the police are aware. All I know is that such moments can be both thrilling and quite terrifying. I can't deny that the adventure of crawling through the darkness of the night from someone running around with a machete excited me a bit, but perhaps I might take a small break on the night walks for a little while.
Sounds like an evening I would not want to have. I love how you wrote it up though, bringing us along for the ride.
Thanks! I really enjoyed writing it up. I actually think this post is better than the story I gave the police, haha.
Time to think and time to set the stage, all the police want are the facts, I was walking it was dark, he talked to himself...blah blah blah. Filling in the mood turned an incident into a pretty nice story to follow.
When I mentioned about the salt, it was referring to that. I was too sleepy that time to pull out this video.
Sounds like an entertainng evening O_O
I love walking around at night in the summer (absolutely not in winter where I barely tolerate being outdoors unless it's sunny with no wind whatsoever XD). I usually have my big dog with me, the worst problems I've encountered are loose angry dogs x_x
And it's probably better that you're only able to give a rather vague description of things to the police than go investigate and possibly get caught in something chaotic if people are having a machete fight :O