First Blood

So it's about ten minutes til 4 as I leave my meeting. I can't decide whether to go to school and do my reading or head home where I will inevitably fall asleep. Today is Wednesday, the only day that my target and I have classes together. His class gets out around 4:15 and I have just learned from an unknowing accomplice where he lives. I have not yet stooped to the desperation of stalking him at home, but this information is very valuable to me because I know now that he walks home and I know the limited avenues of exit from the school that he can take.

I decide to at least try to identify him. If he's got his vegetable at least I'll have a positive id and can begin to look for him elsewhere than outside his classrooms.

I take my spot at the benches beside the doors where I think, based on his last class and route home, that he will most likely leave the building. I'm a little early, 15 minutes to kill until his class is over. I set up my laptop and commence to celebrity gossip-mongering. In a bold manuever of strategy I decide to temporarily hide my own vegetables so if he sees me he won't know I'm in the game.

4:15. His class is over. Is that him? That him? I'm now staring at every person that goes by, trying not to stare.

4:16, 4:17, 4:18, 4:19 - no sign of him. It's not a far walk from his classroom to where I'm sitting, and I've begun to think I've struck out this time. And then it happens. He comes around the corner, and just as I'm about to throw the computer aside and grab my sock, lady luck works some magic for me. He goes into the "fish bowl" - a study room surrounded by windows, directly across from the bench on which I'm sitting. I can now patiently watch him from afar to see whether he has a vegetable.

But it gets so much better. He puts his books down at a table and heads back out and THEN he stops not more than 10 yards from me and carries on a conversation with some guy that I don't care about. Ample time to vegetable search. My heart has begun beating rapidly - this is going to be a bit bizarre. I've never killed anyone before. Will he fight back? Will it get ugly? Does he have a secret vegetable I can't see?

Patience. Patience. Just wait. Try to look elsewhere, I think he saw you looking. He finishes his talk, then walks the other direction. No worries. I know he'll be back for his books.

This is my moment - there's an empty space across from him at the table (yes, even diagonally!). Do I take it? I almost sit there, but then worry it will be too obvious. If he saw me outside, he will surely get suspicious and then conjure up a vegetable. On the other hand, this vantage point will allow me to adequately size him up and determine his vegetable status.

But wait. There's a table by the door. I can sit there, get a good view as he walks in, just to double check for carrots, eggplants, or what have you. I go immediately and as I start to pull out my trusty incognito device - the computer - he comes in, too quickly, I wasn't really looking!

Shit, shit. Think quickly Nik. So I give him one last once over, decide the coast is as clear as I'm going to get, and go for it.

"Excuse me, is your name R?"
"Yeah." (He has no idea.)
I swat him on the arm with my sock. His face is crestfallen and then he laughs. "Sorry." "It's ok, I knew I was going to get killed sooner or later."

Bring on target 2 - you're going down be-atch.

i want some more.