I remember that one day last summer like it was yesterday

I had finished an intense workout and decided to end it with a cool-off session of walking. It was shortly after I started, did I spot him through the corner of my eye. I figured he would continue down the sidewalk he was walking on, around the corner and towards the direction I came from. I decided to take a shortcut to the sidewalk alongside the main street. I quickened my pace so that I would cross his path and give him enough room to pass me by. I honestly was surprised when he came up alongside for a brief moment and overtook me. He was a tall, black man, somewhat older, maybe late thirties, early forties. I, myself, stood a little shorter than him. He did not seem to pay me any mind and soon opened up the distance between him and I. I knew he was taking longer strides, which was probably the reason he was pulling away, even if I thought I was matching his speed.

I had decided to take a farther walk for my cool-off period, after previously taking an eighteen-minute walk before I started my workout for the day. The man crossed the street and I followed him, little by little he pulled away at his walking pace. I decided that I would turn a corner back into the neighborhood, rather than take a dirt path that took those walking on it around the back fences of some houses. I looked up and he had turned the same corner back into the neighborhood. There was a park in this area and I decided that I would cut through this park on my way back home. I took a route I don’t normally take and by the time I took the turn, the black man from before was nowhere to be seen. But when I finally did take the turn down this one street which had the aforementioned park at the end of it, I saw the man again, walking up a walkway to a house. When I neared it, he turned to take a glance at me and I assumed he thought if I was following him, giving some suspicions. I diverted across the street to get to the park I was going to cut through. I had walked down the street about two or three houses when...