heading home

(just now, like, about ten minutes ago):

Left the pub, after a fierce, strange night. So much security, a cop car outside the door. Was halfway down the street before I thought to check my phone. A text message from an unknown number: Please catch a taxi, there's been attacks on women leaving the pub tonight, please be safe. Call a few friends to see who might've sent it, come up empty handed. About halfway home by now. A girl with long blonde hair is walking a few metres in front of me, obviously jumpy at the sounds of fruitbats launching from branches and other usuals. I start chatting with her cos this night, closing in, is starting to prickle at my skin, make me feel like contact is a good thing. She's German, with a thick accent. Two-thirds of the way home: a shadow turns into a man, listing drunk against a low wall. He slouches to follow us as we pass him. Our footsteps speed up, in between gasping breaths I'm asking where she's staying, how far away, and she's asking me what the local emergency number is. Around the corner and he's still following us, yelling something incomprehensible up quiet suburban streets. I have the three zeros typed into my phone, my thumb on the big green button. A block later, it seems so suddenly obvious: two girls hustling up in the early morning dark, some figure of ill-intention in pursuit. So I hit the green button, dial emergency, cough out "police" and my location through sucked in breaths. A nice girl comes on the line, confirms our location, I describe this strange pursuit: my new friend and I, hurrying ahead of someone who could easily catch us were he not crippled (hopefully) by alcohol. The voice on the line confirms that she can hear his yells, checks our cross-street in case she needs to send cars. She is saving my life in all kinds of ways, this girl on the phone. The blonde girl behind me has her head down, listening hard to the half of the conversation she can hear, decidedly not listening to the man behind us. Almost all the way home, and his voice has faded into the darkness, and we are almost at her door. I deliver her safely with a hug and a farewell, and say goodbye to the girl on the phone (only a block from home, surely I'm safe). I call a friend all the same to talk me through the last five minutes, through fumbling for my keys, through switching on the lights in every room of my house and checking behind the curtains (twice).

It's OK, it's really OK, but adrenaline is pumping through me, panic is making me clumsy. It's all good, it's not the same as the other time, it could have been bad but it wasn't. I'm alright. I'm fine. I promise.