The blind runner²⁹

This afternoon I went to Yonkers to run. The marks for the Westchester Half-Marathon have now become nearly invisible, so Dhanu couldn’t follow the proper course while driving near me in his car. I saw the marks, but I had more faith in him than in myself, so I followed the car.

After half a mile, I realised that he had made a wrong turn. Then we retraced our steps until we came to a particular side street. I remembered from our previous training runs that it was the correct street, so I was looking over my shoulder at the car and signalling for Dhanu to come. He was ahead of me forty or fifty metres. While I was still looking backwards, I started running in the street.

Two young boys were passing by — one was running and the other was cycling. The boy who was cycling went right onto the sidewalk to avoid me and said to the other boy, “Can’t you see this blind man? He is looking in one direction and running in the other direction.”

The other boy said, “He can’t do a thing.” He didn’t listen to the other one and kept running on the street.