creepy newness

Last night, I was walking along the East River with someone, who pointed out that when the Carl Schurz Park promenade is deserted and it's rainy, things can get a little (if not a lot) creepy. It does feel a bit like a horror movie, and the winding paths and stairs make you unsure of what might be around the next corner. Even though I know what's around most of the different bends, I still had an ominous feeling that I was being led to a slaughter, and I jumped a little at the sight of a few lone umbrellas in the dark distance. It feels like you could get pushed over the edge of the railing into the river, and no one would hear you or find you.

I run there a few times a week, and I've always been wary, especially when the devoted but very weird river fishermen with seemingly no jobs but an ample supply of boxes for catching crabs as well as other fancy fishing equipment that are out every single day look at me sideways. Today, because it was on the verge of freezing rain, no one was out, and I realized that the area is a little strange. Once mumbling homeless man touched me as I passed on the Randall's/Ward's Island foot bridge, and it felt like the ultimate violation, even though it was innocuous, and just to get my attention. I realized today that this feeling of possible violation at any moment and the idea that perhaps the man with the shopping cart that lives under the overpass at 110th Street might be a dormant serial killer is all part of the eerie factor I've tried to ignore.