ESCAPING THE CRAZIE FROM LEYTONSTONE

I hurried from the rain to stand under the bus shelter at Leytonstone Station and the first thing I noticed was the toxic fume of nicotine from His cigarette. I rolled my eyes thinking ‘these London smokers have come again oh! Wo n kuku ri otutu soju' (They must always smoke especially when it’s cold like this!) When he walked around and came to stand in front of me looking at my face, I thought I had perhaps made my derision too obvious to him.

We waited at the bus for fifteen minutes and even when I wasn’t looking, I sensed his gaze. My bus came, I got in as did about seven others; I scanned the passengers, my gazer wasn’t in the bus and just as I was about to settle down in relief, my instinct already buzzing with subconscious knowledge of something I couldn’t put a finger on, he came in and the door immediately shut after him. He stood before me where I sat and I concentrated on looking away determinedly… I was going only two stops after all.

I came down at my stop with several others and I knew before I glanced back to confirm that he had alighted too. Immediately I stared power walking, not waiting for the passenger lights on come on to stop vehicles before crossing in order to give myself a head start. I also all but glued myself to a girl I suspected to be Nigerian while we were walking, someone who thankfully hadn’t lived in the UK long enough to be uncomfortable with me encroaching on her personal space as I matched her step for step. When however I saw that ‘my guy’ was closing in on us, I ditched my body double and resumed my fast trek.

I was panting by the time I got to the turning of my street. I turned in and kept walking but fear of having my follower chase after me in the dark, deserted street kept me rooted on one spot trying to decide if to change my course and head instead to the corner shop on the next street. It was this that afforded me the opportunity of seeing a male figure sidle into a small alley at the beginning of my street.

I stood where I was in fear, forgetting the threat of the resident fox on my close who lives just behind where I stood and whose ‘home’ I’d always given a wide berth at all times of my passing. Indecision immobilized me- was it he? Was it not? Should I make a run for home, a mere hundred metres away? or should I seek light and company at the corner shop, risking going back towards the alley and the man who might even now be lurking in wait for/ pursuit of me?

It was indecision that made me stand in front of the bushy property of our fox (who had diminished in importance next to the possibility of my being stalked and staked out) long enough to see him- I recognized him by the cap he was wearing- emerge from his alley, look at me and stand there; perhaps trying to determine what to do now that I didn’t have my back turned and had obviously noticed something amiss. We stood five houses apart, looking at each other for a few heartbeats before I blinked and he was gone back into the alley. I stayed for moments that seemed interminable, waiting for him to emerge, deciding what to do. I saw him emerge again briefly and retreat. I started to walk towards home in haste, looking back with every step, waiting for him to follow, my throat prepared to let out a scream the kind of which the quiet English neighbourhood I live in hadn’t heard before.

I reached my gate, ran in leaving it unlocked in my impatience, my heart beating fast. More scared now for not being able to see if he was coming at me. I inserted my key in the lock, which is known for not picking its stubborn days well (it would never open with one try on days when you are hurrying in from the rain or carrying a ton of groceries or trying to escape a crazy stalker). After what must have been about fifteen seconds but seemed like a year and half, the door swung open. I hustled in, enclosing myself in the comforting darkness of the two by two foot space between my front door and the second door.

It was in that safe dark space that I could then acknowledge that I had begun suffering from stomach cramps which always happens whenever I let fear get the better of me. I turned my key in the lock, sighing at the loud click that signified my safety. But in the few, dark moments it took me to find the light switch and turn it on, I convinced myself the lights would come on to reveal my stalker welcoming me home with an evil grin.

Of course that didn’t happen; I was home safe. But if paranoia could kill I’d have died today of fear of the unkempt, shifty looking, black man who saw me off home.