Run

I run. I run to nowhere and from nothing. I run simply to be running.

My heels scold the ground as they throw me forwards. No; not me, it is not me that is being propelled, it is the earth. I tilt my body and at my insistence the world itself slides beneath me. Faster and faster it spins.

I am like the wind. The earth billows out behind me like a streamer until my feet break free from the pavement and I climb up into the clouds. I soar through them and as I rise they burst into explosions of tears. Troposphere, up, stratosphere, up, mesosphere, where the very air is frozen, up. I am the wind.

And then...what? A sword in my side, lead weights around my ankles, a steel band fixed too tightly across my chest. I fall, dragged back by a jealous earth in an Icarian plunge, and I land.

Heartbeatheartbeatheartbeatheartbeatbreathegaspheartbeatheartbeatheartbeat. Breathe. Breathe, heart, breathe.

So, mesosphere this time. Not bad. Nearly. So nearly. But not quite.

Next time I'll make it. Next time.