Running

It was the last day of school before the Christmas break. I had stopped my car outside the front steps of the school’s main entrance in order to drop off a colleague of mine after going for our annual Christmas lunch at a nearby restaurant. I’m a teacher and so is the colleague I dropped off. We both teach English to college students whose first language is French. I’m in my 40’s but sometimes I act like I’m in my 20’s. I really do. I think it’s because, in my job, I’m around young people of that age all the time.
Anyway, on this particular day, on the last day of school before the Christmas break – it happened to be a Friday too which was pretty cool – I was just about to drive away after dropping off a colleague when I saw a student of mine come out of the front doors of the school. He was coming out but his head was turned away. He seemed to be saying good-bye to someone. Then, he turned his head to face forward and started down the stairs as the door closed behind him. He almost bounded down the stairs, his gaze tilted slightly downwards to make sure he didn’t stumble. It looked like he was smiling – the kind of smile you get when you’ve just said good-bye to someone before starting a long vacation – but I couldn’t say for sure. It was about three-thirty in the afternoon and it was pretty cold out – about minus 20 degrees Celsius or something – and windy. At least the sun was shining.

My student reached the bottom of the stairs and started walking west, in the direction I was about to go too. The sun sets pretty early in December and was pretty low in the sky. As he walked away, he became almost a silhouette. A long shadow seemed to follow him. I was about to pull up beside him and offer him a lift home – he probably rented a room not far from school – when all of a sudden he started running. He was pretty tall and slim and it almost looked like he was galloping. It really did. I drove slowly out of the parking lot and onto the main road. He had cut through some parked cars and was running pretty parallel to my car, a bit ahead of me. I decided not to bother him. He looked pretty happy, the way he was running and all. He pulled the hood of his jacket up around his face and continued. He looked cold but I could tell he was happy. I didn’t want to bother him. I drove on.