Author – Looseshoeguy
The night air was brisk and Jared was mildly aware of being chilly without his jacket, but his main focus was getting away from the man accosting him. He had gained some distance after losing the bomber, but not enough, he could hear the puffing breaths of the guy a handful of paces behind him. Alone in a strange city with almost no possessions wasn’t bad enough, now Jared was being pursued by someone who likely wanted to rob him at best, and then who knows what from there.
The path ahead split off into two different parts of the park. The first was paved, lined with old-fashioned gas lamps flickering in the night, lighting up the surroundings for quite a ways. If there were any other people at all, Jared would have chosen that option, hoping that the presence of other pedestrians would have kept him safe, but the park was unfortunately deserted. Instead, Jarad veered away from the pavement and started running through the grass down a steep hill towards a shadowy concentration of trees and bushes, hoping he could get lost in the foliage.
Almost immediately, the slick, wet grass made Jared slip, the worn treads of his Concords not having nearly enough traction. Having already built up quite a bit of momentum from heading downhill, Jared fell head over heels, somersaulting his way down the incline and landing at the bottom in a winded and wet heap. The one piece of good fortune to come out of all of this was that his pursuer had enough time to stop himself from making that same fall, so he was taking the long way around the pavement to the bottom of the hill, buying Jared some time.
Taking a moment to assess his situation, Jared was dismayed to notice that not only were his jeans and hoodie soaking wet, all of his clothes were muddy, including his sock-clad right foot. He hadn’t noticed as it was happening, but with how loose he kept his Jordans, one of them must have gone flying off as he was tumbling down the hill. There it was, in fact, 8 or 9 yards away, resting in the middle of a particularly wet section of the lawn. Most of the grass and dirt Jared had fallen down was just moist from the rain, but this looked almost like a very shallow pond, water an inch deep having accumulated at the bottom of the hill without any drainage. Thinking he was already wet enough that it wouldn’t matter at this point, Jared got up, brushed off as much of the mud as he could, which really only spread the grime around rather than removing any of it, and walked over to his sneaker.
Ten paces away from the shoe, Jared entered the pond, his remaining sneaker-clad foot making the first step and squishing only slightly into the mud. Thinking he was safe, with his next step, his right foot disappeared up past the ankle, the mud sucking his Stance-sock clad foot down under the surface, refusing to let go as he tugged his leg upwards, trying to free himself. He could feet the gritty mud oozing up his lower calf, squeezing itself under the fabric of his sock and coating his toes. Clearly he wasn’t going any further into this bog, but as he leaned toward to try to snag the Concord resting on the surface of the water, it remained out of reach. The mud had him trapped, unable to move forward claim his shoe and unable to easily free his leg so he could retreat, and enough time had passed that Jared could see his pursuer had reached the bottom of the hill. His pace was a confident stroll now as was making his way over to him, believing that Jared wasn’t going anywhere.
With less than a minute before the guy reached him, Jared quickly unzipped his hoodie to use as a lasso, hoping to at least reclaim the Concord, not sure what to do after that. On the first throw, he missed the shoe, but somehow managed to snag a nearby branch, also held in place by the mud. The angle at which he’d made the toss had wrapped the fabric around the branch, which seemed to be more of a stump considering how rooted in the ground it was. Tugging as hard as he could, he heard a mighty rip, and he found himself with half his hoodie back by his side, the other half hanging limply from the branch. Clearly, it was no longer long enough to reach the Jordan Jared was trying to reclaim, nor was it a substantial enough of a piece of clothing to be worn, so he dropped it into the water by his side.
Desperate to escape now, and barely caring in what condition his clothes were in as long as he got away, Jared pulled his leg up with as much force as he could muster. As his foot slowly emerged, he could tell the sock was getting left behind, slipping slowly off his foot still stuck in the mud, but with not much time left to get away, Jared didn’t even care. He sacrificed the sock to the pond, glanced regrettably at the sneaker that was out of reach, and sprinted away, adjusting as quickly as he could to running in one Jordan as he made his way quickly to the treeline. Looking over his shoulder, he saw the guy approaching the pond rather than following him, clearly interested in trying to retrieve the Concord. Rather than sticking around to watch, Jared took advantage of the distraction, grateful to the loss of his shoe for letting him get another advantage in his escape, and moved forward into the darkness of the forested part of the park. While he thought the sneaker was gone forever, Jared would reclaim that shoe later on in the night, but not before further losing even more of what remained of his outfit and overcoming even more trying obstacles than what he’d thus far encountered
wheresmysneaks 