The Runner

Off in the distance, running fast and free, the runner tore off his shirt and threw his arms into the air, like a V.  To his sister it looked like he was a bird that had found momentary liberation.  Thunderheads rolled over the plains in front of him, in a sky that had quickly darkened.  She watched him out there weaving his way through the corn, as the lightning that flashed all around him created a silhouette of his body.  The image became etched in her mind, stamping itself on her memory for all the long years ahead of her:  her brother, her most favorite person in the world, escaping from home and finding freedom out there in the country, where the endless expanse of nature offered him endless possibilities.  It became an icon of fearless inhibition for her.  She only wished that someday she could be brave enough to run the way he did. 

After coming to the end of the path that had wound through the cornfield, he decided to climb the gate that separated their property from the others.  He ran and ran, now across a meadow, then over another hill, into the forest.   This spontaneity was an accolade from the sun, that burning force of action and sanctity.  When he ran, he felt free and impervious to his surroundings.  Nothing could touch him; not the thorns of society, nor the saturnine dismissal of highfalutin snobs.  Advertisements, commercials, despotic weasels, his drunken father- those inhibitions that emaciate the spirit- none of them pestered him when the circulation of air flowed through the machinery of his lungs.  The concentrated breaths gave him focus; his sinewy legs in contact with the Earth helped him to regain the pleasure of being.  As each breath was drawn and exhaled there was a discarding of toxins, both chemical and spiritual.  An invigorating convergence of body and mind powered him forward.  

In the forest there was a clearing, where a wealthy suburban neighborhood sprouted up between the trees.  Cheerful gardeners waved at him as he sped by, noticing the rough outline of his angled anatomy- a body he felt was ugly and repulsive.  Most notably, they saw the flying hair flanking his chiseled face, whose wavy strands of auxiliaries seemed to create the illusion of wings, causing them to wonder if he was indeed trying to fly, like his sister had thought.  He noticed them too and returned their waves.  Their houses had an opulence seldom seen in the slums of his own neighborhood.  Where broken windows and ramshackle roofs should have been, here there were perfectly trussed crowns that stood behind the eyeballs of smiling gables.  Dogs barked at him, running on the greenest grass he’d ever seen; grass that was still glistening from the thaw of the morning frost.  Tasseled chimes made harmonies in the wind, and he could hear children at play in the backyards of those hearty palaces.  And then there were the immaculate gardens manicured daily by loving mothers, their flowers a prismatic array of colors, bulbous and vain, resplendent in the afternoon paraphernalia of nature’s splendor.  

Passing the street, he ran back into the forest.  Soon it cleared and he found himself in a field of windswept cornstalks before a cluster of bright-red persimmon trees.  Dark clouds blotted out the horizon, nearly eclipsing the noon-day sun high overhead.  The wind whistled across his face, softening his form, soothing the workhorse of his body.  He didn’t fear for the changing weather.  In fact, when you are running and the weather turns sour, it is often the best time to experience the galvanizing torrent of Awakening.  He welcomed the abrasive elements into his vicinity when they decided to greet him.  Giant poplars along the slough of the river stretched sideways because of the blowing wind.  Raindrops began to fall on his elated face, but he kept on sprinting ahead, dragging the miles out of his endless bank of perseverance.  

Ahead there was a thunderhead that billowed up high, shading the sun from its friendly grace.  He saw the distinct frame of a bridge over the river and spread his arms out wide again.  His face became pummeled by the incumbent rain.  A gust of wind blew him sideways, and he briefly lost his balance.  But all the months of running over rocky terrain had conditioned him to easily regain his footing.  The medium through which he ran changed from a steady rain to a biting hail.  He looked around and found that there was nowhere to take cover.  But he also knew that thunderstorms only lasted for a few minutes before moving on, and so he continued his journey of Ascension as the storm's strength increased proportionally.  Wiping the flooding sky away from his eyes, he narrowed in on the bridge, sprinting as fast as he could, his arms unholstering imaginary guns from his belt with each strong pump of his core.  On the bridge he could hear the percussion of hailstones beating down on the pavement, and the faint whisperings of wind over the water below.  In an instant he diverged left, closed his eyes, and made a swift launch with one leg over the railing of the bridge, high into the air.  His heart climaxed from the exhaustion of the run as water came at him from all directions.  Just before he landed in the river he opened his eyes, and when he looked up, he could have sworn he’d seen God, both at the apex of physical exertion and in the serene rays of the sun seeping through a penumbra in the diaphanous clouds.  Everything turned white as the river swallowed his body and the thunderstorm relented its hold on the battered valley.