Continued…

I’d been walking along a dirt road when he stopped to talk to me. He told me about how he wanted to take me home with him. He needed help feeding nuts to his squirrels.

As a kid, when you hear something like that, it doesn’t sound unreasonable. What’s so scary about feeding hungry squirrels?

After a few minutes of trying to convince me to go with him, he got out of his car. He must have been at least sixty-years old. Stunted in height, wearing old glasses, he didn’t come across as overpowering.

“Why don’t you want to come home with me?” he asked, placing his hands on my shoulders.

I might have only been ten years old, but I knew this man meant to cause me harm. A ten year old shouldn’t have to worry about defending themselves against such a person, but fate had put him on that road, on that day, at that particular time.

His grip on my shoulders had no strength behind it. His stance was a lie, veiled in a steadiness that didn’t actually exist. Unknown to him, I’d lived my young life in the nearby fields and forests, hiking and exploring. I'd had no choice but to become as surefooted as a deer.

I shifted my shoulders, forcing him to release my body from his control. I smelled alcohol lingering in the air between us, just before I turned and jumped down into the ditch.
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I said to him. “The squirrels can feed themselves.” I picked up one of the branches which had been cut from a nearby tree. I held it, ready to swing it like a baseball bat. “I’ve hit a lot of home runs, so you better be leaving.”

I’d held onto that branch so tight, the rough bark left its marks on the palms of my hands. I stood there in that pose, long after he had driven away. It was the first time I had felt that way about anyone. Repulsive. Revulsion. Repugnant.

Many years later, the memory of the incident slithers its way into the present. It lingers like a dank, dark fog, then disappears once again, when the sunlight finds it.