First world problems. It's what Jake Burrows was thinking as he set out on his run and the music didn't immediately kick in on his iPhone. Sometimes there's a delay. He had an app that tracked his running pace, logged his miles, mapped his route, and informed him of his current progress in a friendly, upbeat, HAL 2000 sort of way. "Begin your run," it told him, and then... silence. No music. Just the rustle of the soft hair, brushing against the earbuds, the sound of his Asics hitting the asphalt, and approaching traffic in the distance. And a neighbor's voice.

"Careful. The Naked Runner's out today," Kendra smiled. He heard it loud and clear, grinned, shook his head, and waved as he ran past. 

Jake was not The Naked Runner. This was, rather, the across-the-street neighbor of Kendra, who they'd seen out jogging from time to time. A tall, well-built man in his early fifties, the Naked Runner ran shirtless in a pair of 70's era short-shorts that revealed the upper portion of his muscular, white thighs, in sort of a reverse plumber's crack. No one knew his name, just that he was out running once or twice a week, wearing the same little shorts, and always shirtless. At a cul-de-sac party one summer afternoon, someone referred to the guy as "The Naked Runner", they laughed, and the name stuck.

I'll put it on my list, thought Jake, of Things I See On My Run. This was a running tab of things he intended to get around to write about. To WRITE. As if he could. He gave up writing years ago after he emerged from the forest, and then he married his girlfriend and moved here, to the suburbs, which, somewhere in the distant past, he swore he would never do. The portrait of the artist as a young man, this Jake Burrows, was of a long-haired kid coming to the conclusion that he had no talent. He got up one day from that bistro table in the corner of the corner coffee shop, walked out down the street, stopped in and got a haircut, and then went out and got a job. That was it. And here now, fifteen years later, was he in the suburbs, running down the street, making a desperate list in his head, waiting for the music to begin.

There was the neighbor's cat, a big orange tabby that lay slovenly under a parked car, and which Jake was convinced was the one using his yard as a litter box. This cat, which had never appeared to be particularly intelligent, inquisitive, or athletic, had somehow evaded the bands of coyotes that roamed the streets at night. This earned it some respect, as other cats arrived to new homes on the cul-de-sac from time to time, and then went missing suddenly, unexpectedly, one otherwise uneventful day,

And there was the big intersection at the bottom of the hill, the one Jake used to dart out into, before they installed the traffic signal and crosswalk. This slowed his overall run time considerably, and Jake always chalked up the green light or red light to the game of chance that comes on Race Day, where you never know what the weather's gonna be, or what injuries or illnesses you may be battling.

And then up a small hill, to get the heart pumping. Quicken the pace, up and over, around the corner, ten long steps before you can slow it down and even out. 

Past the old beat-up Honda Civic with the large hand-made sign on top that read: ATTORNEY AT LAW LANE THOMPSON IS A FRAUD. Who knew? But the car paraded around town to spread the message of ill-will.