She Ran

And in the fading darkness of the day, she ran. She left her thoughts behind and focused on how far she could go and how fast. She couldn’t let anyone down there but herself, she could not disappoint or discourage, and she could just move, accelerated and quiet. Pure noise in her head put her thoughts out of sight and more importantly out of mind as she had the instant gratification of moving further away from her point of origin. Now she was accomplishing something, a completed task with a beginning and an end, success at last as she silently chased the sun into setting. How far could she get before those shafts of light no longer shed day through the peaks of the mountains. Despite the pain radiating in her shoulders and legs, despite the block constantly in her mind, she pushed forward, too stubborn to look back and implying confidence with a raised head, a focused stare and an determined eye towards the horizon. She raced away against time, the pressures of her life, the negativity of the day and the heat of the moment. She saw the world start to look brighter despite the fading sunshine the farther away she got. She was nobody’s problem here, there was no one to point here, no one to live up to, no one to knock her down here, and the faster she moved, the farther she got. And the farther she got the more she needed to get away.She couldn’t run forever, at some point she knew she had to stop, let the world catch up with her, let her life seep back in and her thoughts return, she knew she would have to turn around. But still she pushed further, she moved faster, she avoided longer. She knew better than to escape the pressures forever, even though her acceleration away from her life was the better choice, you can only run for so long. Because she always did the right thing despite how much her heart was broken she knew the running had to stop. And so, just before the sun touched the end of the world, she turned and let the fading light push her back…