Things I see when I run

So I was out running late last night, passing the second mile on the east side of Vanderbilt. There was a strange assortment of things on the sidewalk.

First, I passed an abandoned pair of flip-flops. About a hundred yards later, two slices of bread - eaten completely except for 3/4's pf the crusts, such that they made half-moon shapes or a pair of "C's" or horseshoes - aranged in a sort of "S" shape.

About a hundred yards later, there was a second set of bread crusts, arranged again in that "S" shape.

Running, listening to 'Out the Other' on WRVU on Wednesday nights, my mind is well-lubed and pithy. I began to wonder, as I wandered, what sort of story was behind all this. What would cause someone to suddenly abandon their footwear? Was it the same individual who was also leaving these cryptic bread-letters? Was this a message of hope (new shoes and bread for all)? Of tragedy? How will the late observer (in this case, me) make sense of these signs?

I think today I'll err on the side of hope - the discovery that one's feet are tough enough to face the bare Earth and sidewalk on their own; enough bread that all can eat our fill and play with our food; enough time to play and dream that we connive cryptic messages, writ in letters fleeting enough for poetry, to leave for those to come - we know not who.