Friday: The Runner

As I was snug in my bed....wait, mattress on the floor, this morning, nestled in blankets and cherishing the fact of sleeping in, I jolted up, realizing I had totally forgotten to post my blog last night. So here it is......late.


She had been running for as long as she could remember. The endless stretch of highway had become her home. She didn’t know where she was running to. Nor where she was running from. But day after day and year after year she heard the sound of her footsteps hitting the pavement one after another.
Of course she would stop, now and again, but never for long. Folks would ask her where she was running. She’d smile and say she had to be on her way.
She focused on the road. The dotted yellow lines in front of her. The sound of her feet. She ran through the mountains, standing in glory. Through the plains, wide as the sky. Through the forest, where squirrels chased each other, up and up and round and round to the tops of the trees. She saw nothing but the road.
Sometimes, her thoughts would wander and she would wonder if there might be more. But those thoughts frightened her and she didn’t know what to do with them. So she’d focus on her steps, counting them.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five….

On a day like any other, she had stopped in a small town, sat on a park bench, ate some lunch. A frail, wrinkled man with the kindest eyes she’d ever known sat next to her and said not a word. As she rose to be on her way, he grabbed her hand. “Sometimes you’ll find where you’re running to is exactly what you’re running from.” Politely she smiled, pulled her hand away, and started down the road.
What could he mean?
She tried shoving the man’s words from her head.
She counted her steps.
One.
Two.
Who was this man?
Three.
Four.
What did he know anyway?
“Keep your eyes on the road,” she told herself.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
Eight.
That was more like it.
She settled back into the rhythm of the road. This was what she knew. This is what she would continue to do.
“Excuse me.”
The sound of another’s voice startled her so, she nearly tripped over her own feet. But she kept running. She looked to her left, and saw a young man, running, step for step, right beside her.
“Follow me.” He said and he grabbed her hand. They ran faster than she had ever run before. Yet, as she ran, hand in hand with this stranger, she saw for the first time, the mountains standing in glory. The plains, wide as the sky. The forest, where squirrels chased each other up and up and round and round to the tops of the trees. And when she thought she could run no longer, she and the stranger burst through the door of the most amazing house she’d ever seen. She found herself in the most elegant of corridors, with a staircase wrapping round on either side.
“We’re here! We’ve made it!” Yelled the stranger.
There appeared at the top of the stairs, a man. Younger in appearance and with the smoothest of skin, but with the same unmistakable eyes of the man on the park bench. He made his way down the stairs, embraced her, kissed her head and said,
“Child, welcome home.”