Imagination and Tim Burton movies….

Sunday night.

He was walking down his driveway with an armful of boxes, a bag of recyclables, and a big dog on a leash.

His goal – put all the boxes and recyclables on the curb; and then proceed to take the dog for her evening walk.

“Hope the dog doesn’t take off on me.” He thought briefly, as he crouched by the side of his busy street, placing the bags and boxes on the curb. And, as it tends to do, his imagination ran with the notion.

He clearly saw in his mind eye his dog seeing a rabbit, taking off, and yanking him over, facedown into the street, as a white van approached…

This did not happen of course.
Nothing did.
Done with the unloading, they proceeded together up the street in companionable silence, until they reached the corner.
Looking both ways, they entered the cross walk at the four way stop, and crossed the street.

They were over halfway across when a large white van, barely slowing down at the stop sign, bore down upon them. Seeing this, he quickly jumped back, pulling the dog with him, and started cursing mightily at the van, which by this time had already hit its brakes, and was speeding back up, never actually stopping for the pedestrians who had the right of way.

“Jesus, that was close!” he muttered, wishing he had a cell phone with him so he could call the police with the van’s description and license plate number.
Shaken, he and his canine companion continued across the intersection, and on with their walk.

Moments later, images from Beetle Juice popped into his head. The movie started with Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin narrowly missing a big accident, only to find out that they not only did NOT miss it, but they were actually dead.

He noticed how quiet it was outside, and how there wasn’t anyone else to be seen. He thought about the movie some more, and laughed to himself, amused by his own imagination. And they walked on.

And on, and on, and there was still no one else to be seen. Down two blocks, left just past the elementary school, through the empty playing fields by the train tracks, and back toward home. And he thought again about the movie…

As he approached the four way stop again, a garage door opened, and the home’s owner walked out. He was a nice guy, wife, two kids, spent lots of time in the summer shaping his hedges until they were perfect.
The man and his dog had stopped numerous times in the past to exchange pleasantries with him, whilst he trimmed. The man remembered a particularly pleasant exchange from the end of last summer, where he was encouraged to smell the greenness of the freshly trimmed hedge. It had smelled wonderful.

“Happy new year!” the home’s owner said cheerfully to the man, as he walked to his van, parked at the curb.
“Oh, whew!” The man thought, smiling to himself.

“Happy new year to you, too!”

The walk concluded without incident, and he was delighted to hear his wife giving their daughter a bath, when he walked into the house from the cold, quiet night.

“How was the walk?” She called from the bathroom, as he took off his coat and scarf

“It was ok.”