In general I don’t fear mythical beings or deities – I’m not a non-believer in demons, ghosts, and beasts of otherworldly origins, but it’s the monsters lurking within human forms that give me the most unease. Dahmer, Albert Fish, Bundy and the two-hundred or so active serial killers an article I recently read suggested were currently running amok around the country. These men, and sometimes women, represent an evil that is far more believable – the number of missing persons reported on a daily basis, an exact tally I forget, also factors into my constant concern for my attractive better-half.

Running with her, on trails and streets, is a real delight. If she didn’t want to do it, I wouldn’t do it, and vice versa – each day one of us guilts/encourages the other to get on with it, and the runs are the best part of any morning we do them. My mile-time is just a fraction less than hers, and so it isn’t unusual for me to have gained a fair amount of distance between us by the twenty-minute mark – I am usually just close enough to still hear her signature steps, but from time to time I find myself out of earshot, and once in a while, too far away to even see her.

When this happens I tend to pause, run in place, and wait for her to reappear – in those few seconds before she does, I am always quite certain she has been nabbed right off the trail by one of the world’s not-yet-monikered killers at-large. The more statistically obvious scenarios involving bears, random mountain lions, tripping sticks, or bee-swarms don’t really enter my noggin. Until she reveals herself again, I am always operating under the notion that she has been abducted and begin speculating that had I just stayed closer it would have never happened.

But here’s the thing: I know no karate, I didn’t wrestle in school, I don’t exercise with a concealed weapon, and even my shouting-for-help-voice is probably not great, I doubt the baritone nature of my vocal chords would carry for shit. One hundred and fifty-four pounds vs. the drooling, machete toting, unfeeling, born-from-the-seed-of-demons-soul hellbent on turning her into first-prize country fair beef jerky – it makes little sense and I’m quite sure I’m no deterrent.

We tend to run during the hours I let my mind believe these hellions are sleeping – early in the morning. They are a lazy sort, and our only advantage is being up before noon. Rosch – 1, Beelzebub’s Best – o.