ab inito / from the beginning.

encounter.

last tuesday night, i had an encounter with a group of men. i was with my cousin and her boyfriend, we had been going out to a concert and then making our way home by various means of transport (in the end including: trains, trams, buses and taxis). after a bus ride in which it felt like we were aboard the knight bus from harry potter, we disembarked at a small, deserted shopping center. nothing was open and nobody was about, i think the time was around midnight. i usually don’t mind being out late, nothing unnerving has ever happened to me before. you hear about these things, but you never expect them. my cousin was playing some music on her phone (just after she had complained about individuals who do that on the bus, mind you) and we immediately attracted the attention of some, i’m sure, well-meaning young men. their initial jibes of “hey, slut!” didn’t bother me too much. i’ve had this before, which always amuses me in a sense because, no, i’m not a slut and what would they know? anyway. i was instructed to start walking, which i did, but for any girl who has worn new and fairly uncomfortable shoes knows that a quick pace is hard to achieve. they continued yelling and although i heard them, i didn’t realise that the noise was getting closer, perhaps they were just keeping pace with us so the noise seemed steady, or perhaps i was trying to block it out, because my heart began thumping in my throat and ears. i heard it, can you walk any faster? i also heard the subtle tremors in his voice, the anxiousness. as i walked faster, so did they. i imagined them looking at my feet, and my calves, up the back of my thighs and… well, at that point i started to jog. but so did they. i could now distinctly hear their footfalls approaching behind me, chasing at my heels. they seemed to have suddenly became very close, much too close. i didn’t know how many there were, more than one, probably more than two. i didn’t dare look behind me, because then i would really see that i wasn’t that far ahead at all. i realised that i was falling behind and, wondered what would happen if they did catch up to me. would they grab at me, hit me? their calls of “i’ll fuck you up” did not relax me, along with their other sinister promises. i saw a petrol station ahead of me and, that was where we were headed. i was furiously concentrating on simply making it. we reached the light and, as if stung, i heard their footsteps retreating. they had most likely noticed that a male was with us, we were not, in fact, just two vulnerable girls. i was breathless by this stage and, my legs were shaking. their voices echoed, “hey, we were only joking…”

i wasn’t laughing.