Autumn, Afternoon, A short walk, or Actually escaping
November, 2005

In the afternoon of a sunny day in November, recently, we went a short walk. The members were, my colleges, Stacey and Joy, and two visitors from Praque, Czech, Lubos and Milan. We have a big park by our office campus that has a lake and some trails. We, coming across the parking lots and getting through a gate at the fence, already found ourselves in deep forest. We took a road not being paved well. In the forest, falling leaves were covering the ground. Tree leaves had changed its color to yellow,　and sun ray in autumn afternoon further turned them brightly gold. We walked ahead the road and found the lake. What a quiet and peaceful place. The air was slightly chilled. We saw a bird hamming. I challenged to drive my wheelchair very close to the lake share, and Stacey took a photo of me. The ducks in the lake looked chilled as well. We separated from the road and were walking by the lake share. It'd be a nice camping ground here covered by the thick carpet of leaves, but it had been swamped by the rain a day before. So I found many little ponds and had to drive my chair avoiding them. It is also a place that the army takes training. We saw the trace that they built a temporal bridge over an inlet of the lake. I imaged that some tanks had came over the bridge. We walked across bush and caught the road again. I tried to head back to the office. But Stacey said we would like to walk more and started walking toward the opposite direction. He did read what I was really thinking. We headed the top of the hill nearby the lake. The road was no longer paved turned to be a muddy tail. I had to drive it carefully to choose the right track, avoiding to be stuck in mud. Though, other members were enjoying the chat. I, who have speech impediment, was only able to nod to them without answering yes or no. :-) The muddy road was getting more steep and slipper to my chair. Joy, behind me, saw me have managed an obstacle course, and said "Let's head back to the office" with pretending innocent. Then, we made the hill and took group photos. I saw some residental area at the opposite side of the hill. At the summit, Stacey found a narrow trail forked from the road we came. And he led us to it. In this spring, Stacey and his family took me a long walk, so he knew the high performance of my chair. I carefully went down the slope of hill with killing the speed by taking many turns like a skier. Forthur, the narrow trail was ahead. Stacey captured my ride to videos with my digital camera. I enjoyed the rough ride on the trail, and soon got a road to the office. In the U.K. of Novemver, the lake looked to have already started praparing for the sunset. The next day, conversation of my co-workers. A: "I saw some dots of mud on the carpet from yesterday. You know why?" B: "I would not say his name, but I know who is resposible for it. This guy, escaping from his work, went to the park trails yesterday after raining and brought back the very muddy "wheels". ... Well, no one brings wheels to the 2nd floor except one person. I: ( I drew two doughnuts with my chair before entering the building, but I couldn't clean them up.) Special Thanks Mr. Stacey Marshall Extra: Modern Art Just photographed by Stacey Marshall Title: An engineer says, I'm here! (where he is living in)

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