I took a long run today and it was lovely and long.

I was about one mile away from home, feeling accomplished with a good pace when I noticed a woman across the street from me. Arms flailing, belongings strewn across the lawn of a church she paced and yelled until she caught me in her sight. She ran in between oncoming cars to get to me. To throw her anger and crazy in my face. As she got closer I saw her dark eye makeup stained her cheeks black and she was raging. I stopped and asked if she was ok. She screamed, "No."  And then she said, "I'm going to fucking cut you and punch you." She said more but as she raised her fist in the air above me I turned and ran as fast as I could. I had head phones on that muffled her continued cursing and incoherent rant. I turned to see where she was when I felt I was possibly out of sight and luckily she didn't follow me. I then took out my phone and dialed 911 as I walked briskly backwards down the sidewalk, just in case. I gave my location, description and story and ran home with a bit of unwelcome adrenaline.

What happened to her, I don't know. I drove by later and all signs of her were gone. That's the first time in my life someone has raised their hand to me and it was so very very frightening. I can't get her out of my head and I don't want to think about what drove her to that moment in her life when our moments met.

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