The Weekend in Review

I haven't been back to my house since Friday. Since then, I've slept all of four hours uninterrupted, maybe another three or four hours on top of that, broken up into bits and pieces.

I think I'm going crazy. I know there's something wrong with me. Perhaps that's the best place to start.

In review; Physical Condition

-Sleep-deprived
-Bruises: knees, shins forearms and elbows
-Reflexes are slow
-Shallow cut, two centimetres long, left forearm
-Inconsistent bouts of light-headedness
-Signs of illness: Loss of appetite, persistent cough, difficulty breathing, red blotches on the upper torso, elevated body temperature, shakes.

In review; Mental Condition
-Sleep-deprived
-Headaches
-Thinking is sluggish
-difficulty remembering words
-Persistent feeling of being watched or observed
-Paranoia
-Difficulty maintaining focus
-Spacing out/overfocusing

Music is helping me stay awake and focused at the moment. A caffeine crash at this point would knock me right out.
So to summarize. I haven't stopped moving since Friday. I've stayed mostly in Toronto and the surrounding area. Moving around on transit, staying in public spaces, malls, libraries, train stations. I've been getting most of my sleep on public transit as well.
Friday evening, I was working on my bicycle, when I heard a noise out in along the side of the house.
We're on good terms with the neighbours, so there's no fence between the two yards.
There's a foot-high wall that we're on the low end of that their whole yard is level with the top of. There's also a faux-riverbed filled with stones between the deck on our house and the top of the wall.

It was pretty dark that night, and if you were stupid, you might have missed seeing the planter on the other side, over-corrected and stuck your foot right in that shallow ditch. We keep a sledge-hammer in the garage, but its big and heavy and I have very little measurable upper body strength. No, I reached for one of the knives that stays out there for the barbecue and stuck a box-cutter in my pocket just to be safe.
There are only two kinds of paranoia. Whoever it was was wearing a mask. Creepy, white, featureless except for the holes for the eyes. I say whoever it was because I didn't recognize the person wearing the mask. It was obvious what it was.

Proxy.

The idiot had tripped and hit his head on the deck. Served him right. I bolted around him, down the driveway and out into the night. Admittedly, not the smartest thing to do, but I wasn't thinking straight. There was a proxy in my backyard.

I'm sure the veteran slender-stalked (I'm looking at you Fitzgerald.) might not think this is much. You've dealt with proxies. But I mean. It's different. Knowing what's going to happen. What might happen, what will happen, and having some masked prat staring you in the face.

So yeah. I ran. Across the road, through a townhouse complex, and into the yard behind the local school. As I turned around, sure enough, there was the proxy. There was a playground not too far away. I'd visited it dozens of times. I sprinted for the park, lungs burning. I'm not in very good shape. Under the bridge that held the road above, and up the side of the hill.

Fear is a very good motivator, and I some how had managed to reach the hill first. I hid behind a rock and waited to hear him on the pavement. It wasn't long. I wasn't thinking clearly, as I jumped out from behind the rock, I saw the knife in his hand immediately, and knew it was too late. I threw my arm up to protect my face and charged into him, knocking us both back down the hill.

The proxy landed with a heavy sort of thud at the bottom, wheezing. In hindsight, I suppose it just wasn't his night. I'd skidded to a stop, rather unceremoniously, on my ass a little further up the hill. He wasn't going to be getting up fast. I dropped my knife back on the deck. There was a stinging feeling on my forearm, a rather nice nick from whatever he'd been carrying.

Looking down at the ground, I saw it. The knife I'd dropped back on the deck (of course).
Note to self, edged weapons are sharp. Don't let other people get yours. Seriously. Dumbass.
The proxy on the subway platform was a fluke. He charged me and fell off the platform. Dumb luck: not a commodity one trades in easily. This one, I couldn't kill. Still, I was in better shape than he was, I could stand up (though I was certain to be sore later) and he was having trouble breathing.

I stomped on his chest. And kicked him a few times. I'm not going to stop kicking a fucking proxy because he got knocked down. In fact, yes, I'm going to kick him because he's down. I took his mask off. I don't recognize the face. I roll up his sleeve and slice him across the arm, about the same place he got me. Another stomp on his chest.

"If I see you again..." I couldn't think of a threat to go with it. I kicked him one more time for good measure.

I booked it back home, grabbed my bag, made an excuse about seeing a friend for the weekend and left the house.

Let me tell you about my bag. Survival experts recommend what they call a "bug-out" bag. A bag which contains the essentials to survive for 72 hours. My bug-out bag is a leather duffle-bag. It probably wouldn't keep me for 72 hours out in the wildness, but it's not mean to be a proper survival bag.
Contents:
-A Book
-First Aid Kit
-light rain coat
-towel
-four water bottles
-a bottle of juice
-various tea stolen from work
-train pass
-tokens for the subway
-tickets for the busses
-the charger for my phone
-a spare pair of jeans
-the gun (thank you Spencer)
-prybar
- a small toolkit (monkey wrench and allan keys)
-a tupperware container with cutlery
-and whatever food I can scrape up as I'm leaving.

And I was gone.