Printed from WriteWords - http://www.writewords.org.uk/archive/6449.asp

Sing, Michael, Sing

by  Mac

Posted: Monday, September 13, 2004
Word Count: 187
Summary: Just thought I'd see what you thought of this as a vignette.




Sing, Michael, sing. A dirt path; mainly mud, littered with stones. Dodge the puddles. The trees rush towards you. Leaves are five different colours. The woods a kaleidoscope spinning as you run; your heart a machine gun. You are twelve-years-old. They never, ever hear you when you cry at night. If you run then no one can hurt you and nothing can touch you. When you are older you will have to find a new way of running and a new means of keeping everything and everyone at a distance but you don't know this yet so you just run. There's a clearing coming up and you break through the forest's diaphragm into the exposed plain and push as hard as you can to cover the open ground. Legs pump like pistons and the metallic taste of blood fills your mouth. There is a kind of panic to this sort of running. You hit the other side and resume a more normal rhythm. In your mind the hits of the day play on a personal jukebox; songs will save your life, over and over. Just keep running.