Haunted Streets

Lately when I take Puppyman (aka Wyatt) for a night walk he has been stopping at the beginning of the Greenway to stare across the street in the direction of Brommel Park. I never see anything moving or hear any noises. It takes a few tugs to get him moving. It takes a few more psychic tugs for me to shake the feelings his studious gaze to the north inspire.

Last night I took him out and he did not stop in his tracks however I was spooked by something else. Three darkly dressed children, the youngest was probably no more than six years old, walking, slowly rather aimlessly at 9:30 at night on a weeknight. They might be the kids who are often running after a dog that has escaped and they probably live on Wyoming. But tonight there was no dogs with them, nor were they calling for a lost pooch. There was something rather dangerous in a haunted aura sort of way about them. Their slow movement and dark clothes reminded me of a movie I could not remember but something along the lines of The Riches television which I opted out of following because the desperately dark story lines, the edge of total disaster caused me too much anxiety to watch it. It also recalled the episode of CSI where a house is surrounded by homeless people.

Tonight we reached the spot where he often stops but tonight he was paralyzed. No amount of tugging, coaxing would get him to move. He was smelling something that was absolutely compelling. Giving up I went to turn around and go home but then I thought I would try to distract him a bit and try looping around on the grass rather than trying to get him to walk on the path. Nope he wasn't having any of that either. He headed to cross the street and went to the infamous (in this house) white house and we walked to it's back yard which leads to the alley and back to our house.

My imagination tends to run rampant anyway so as Wyatt sniffed suspiciously my mind became a swirl of activity thinking of wild animals leaving scents (the cemetery one block south has been known to have fox); pheromones of fear left during a mugging (which almost never happens in this neighborhood); to obscure twisted tales that couldn't even fully form in the time I was standing there in the damp, chilled air at the same time I was trying to fathom how to get the dog to move.

Are there energies there that only beings like dogs and babies can sense? Are there deep dramas going on there? Scandalous rendezvouses? Or simple some new animal who we just keep missing who is giving off compelling scents. No way to know but it casts a whole different light on my neighborhood after dark.