RED CHALK

You’re out for a walk one morning, the last of the autumn’s leaves slowly dissolving on the pavement. There’s much on your mind which is why you’ve gone out for a walk, and you’re so wrapped up in your thoughts that you almost don’t notice it.
But you do, almost without registering so you stop and take a step back. Laugh. There, written in red chalk on the pavement, is your first name. A sign, you say to yourself laughing again, and walk on.
Three streets away you see it before you reach it. There again, larger this time, the red chalk letters. Your name. God, have they done every street around here, you think.
Two more corners turned, more red chalk. This time you stop for a moment longer, a little thoughtful, a tiny bit fearful. Because this time, it’s your full name. You look around, but no one is there. Walk on.
The next street. Your full name. The name of your secret made-up friend when you were six, that you have never told anybody. All in red chalk, in between the leaves.
A little further up the street, you can see more red on the pavement. You walk towards it. It’s thick, scribbled, as if written in haste and gone over and over the letters for emphasis. And it just says:

RUN.

So, you do. And later that day, when you turn on the TV and see the news about what happened just a few streets away from your home, you are very glad you did.