Woman with a dog (Christine)
I slipped on my shoes as Jimmy whined eagerly, pawing at the door frame. It had been an unusually mild October day here in Massachusetts and it was hard to tell which of us was more excited to enjoy the last rays of warm sunshine.
“Are you sure you don't want to join us?” I called to my husband Frank over the blaring TV. I clipped on Jimmy’s worn leash, petting his graying muzzle affectionately. He chuffed at me and turned to lick my hand.
“No thanks, Chrissy! Patriots are on fire today!” Frank called back.
I shrugged, grabbing my windbreaker off its hook as I cracked open the front door. Jimmy nosed it open further, trotting ahead of me towards the nearby state park.
The southern entrance of the park took us directly to the main beach. The end of swimming season meant no water flew to the lower beach from the dam. The dry lake bed reminded me of the Martian terrain, starkly different from just a few weeks ago when the beach was brimming with water and, lots of people.
We continued to walk past what used to be the beach, on to a trail towards a small bridge that led to a wooded patch. Jimmy pulled me deeper into the woods which I didn't mind since my fitbit said “3159 more steps to reach today’s goal!”.
Growing up in Hopkinton, while I was in high school, this park had gained notoriety after a murder incident in the park.
As I sailed back in memory, I realized that Jimmy and I had reached the Northern end of the park, while I blurted out, “Hurry up Jimmy! Frank and I have dinner plans tonight.”
We were out of the woods in about twenty minutes which meant twenty more minutes to get home. As I was wondering how deserted the park was, a car went past the bridge towards the lower beach, which was only the second car I saw in the park today.
When I got closer to the bridge, the car slowed down on the bridge and came to a stop. It is pretty unusual to stop a car at that spot. While I continued towards the bridge, the driver stepped out of the car. He was about six feet tall and dark, had a beard and was looking straight at me.
My heart started to pound, as a second man stepped out of the car from the passenger seat. Hundreds of questions crossed my mind as I wanted to run but couldn’t move, even though Jimmy was pulling on the leash.
"Oh God! Please save me..."
Man with a beard (Brijesh)
My in laws were visiting us from India after my son was born. As per Indian culture, the mother-to-be usually moves in with her parents a few weeks before the due date. In our case it was the reverse since my mother-in-law had moved in with us just a week before my son was born. My father-in-law had recently come to the US to see my son.
We drove down to the Hopkinton state park to see Fall colors on a beautiful warm evening. The park housed a dam which made a huge lake, making way for pretty good pictures under the right conditions.
We found a good place to get down in the middle of the park. The trees had beautiful yellow and orange colors which was worth a few shots on my phone's camera.
After taking enough pictures, we decided to head down to the southern side of the park where the beaches were located. The trees around the upper beach had not yet turned colors and hence we decided to check out the main beach area. As we drove down to the main beach, only to find it empty, we saw a car full of men heading out of the parking lot.
As we got closer to the beach my wife exclaimed, "There used to be a lake here! Where did it go?".
"Evaporated!! The lake has dried up".
Since my three year old daughter could not see the dry lake bed from her car seat, she wanted to get down and take a look at the beach herself. We ignored her pleas until it became a shrill and a loud cry, by which time we were out of the parking lot and on the bridge above a stream that served as an outlet for the dam.
The dam was built in the late nineteenth century to provide water to the city of Boston, but currently served as a recreational lake and also helped maintain the water table for the nearby wells that provide water to the town of Ashland.
I decided to stop the car on the bridge since it gave a good view of the lower beach and the dried lake bed. As I slowed down the car, I saw a woman walk her dog towards the bridge.
After I stopped the car, she stopped right in her tracks. From the distance she seemed quite beautiful and could have been in her mid thirties, and also looked frightened for some reason.
I told my wife, "Look at that woman...",
"She looks awfully scared".
As my father-in-law and I got down from my car, the woman's face turned as pale as if she had seen a ghost.
From the evolutionary point of view, our body's defence mechanism rushes most of the blood from our head to the limbs, in order to help run away from danger. Moreover under extreme circumstances, the images that we see, bypass the visual cortex and directly trigger actions to respond against the imminent danger. Our brain doesn't get a chance to think before it tells us to act.
Since I could see that the woman was scared, I rushed to the back of the car to get my daughter out of the car seat, thinking that seeing my daughter would calm her down.
Christine:
As I was about to call 911, the driver opened the rear passenger door to let somebody out. A little girl stepped out of the car and the two men and the girl walked towards the other side of the bridge looking at the dam. Perhaps these people don't mean any harm, they had just stopped at an unusual spot.
Brijesh:
The woman continued to walk towards the bridge only after seeing my daughter, while my daughter got consoled only after I pointed at the dry lake bed.
She was excited as she said, "See Appa, there is no water in the lake. There is nobody on the beach either!"
While we were looking at the beach the woman stopped by and said, "I got frightened since this is an unusual spot to stop the car. For some reason I thought it was a car full of men".
"Yes, there was no reason to stop the car on this bridge except that my daughter could not see the dry lake bed from her car seat and she would not stop crying until we showed her the dry lake bed!"
"There was a murder in this park.... about twenty years ago but its memory is still green in my head. I guess I was overtaken by fear".
Then she turned to my daughter and said, "Hi Sweetie, do you want to pat the dog? He is very friendly".
My daughter usually stays away from dogs and just hid behind me.
"It's okay if you don’t want to pat him! Have a good night!"
"Good night!"
I wanted to apologize for unintentionally tormenting the woman but wasn't sure whether I should have, since all I had done was stop my car on a bridge in a deserted park.
As the whole episode came to an end, for some reason, these words were echoing inside my head "...They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists..." When a portion of the population is pre-conditioned with such words from a man who was now in power, it's hard to expect sane response from a terrified public. Thinking back about the incident, I felt that I should have apologized to the woman.
