Towards It

I ran west, my feet pounding the pavement, the sounds of passing cars filling my ears, and rain beating hard on my face. What irony; that such cold raindrops could mingle so unhesitatingly with my hot tears, both running down my cheeks, mixing, making one indistinguishable from the other. I ran.

I ran.

I can’t even remember what year it was, let alone what day or what season. I don’t remember what I was wearing; I had, in my haste probably forgotten to put on a jacket, but then again, perhaps it had been a warm winter day, in which case I must have had a coat on. I cannot for the life of me recall where I had started from. What I do remember of my exodus was that I felt I had been running forever, for at least twenty years, maybe more. And above all, I remember the feeling I was feeling. A dull ache in my chest, like the firm grip of a demon’s withered hand clutched around my already small heart, making each palpitation forced, almost painful. I do not even know the word for this feeling. The feeling of not knowing where one belongs, nor where one is to go from here – wherever “here” is. That lack of identification, of having something…sincere…to cling to. And that abject depravity that accompanies the loneliness that one is too stubborn to admit to.

And so I kept running.

Maybe I was hoping to accidentally end it all, to swerve off the sidewalk at the last moment, hurtling my hurting body into the oncoming traffic. They’d never be able to stop. The roads were wet and slippery, as if the angels had been crying along with me. But I didn’t believe in angels. After all, crying for another being is useless. If angels were real, it would not have come to this.

Maybe I was hoping to fall. To run forever, or at least until I stumbled. Then, I would know that my failures were real. A proud tumble, not unlike a broken heart, is difficult to disguise. So maybe I was trying to change myself. I was…still am…pretentious, prideful, obstinate. Perhaps by some long thought-out and twisted logic, a run and subsequent fall would bring me down to the level of the commoner. And would be my first step to repentance.

Or maybe I was just looking for God. Though I can’t imagine I’d find him by running. It’s not the movies, after all.

Whatever it was, I was running. I was running alone. And the solitude haunted me. As I turned a corner the wind, in its infinite mercy, picked up speed, pelting the large raindrops with greater fervour against my skin. So hard they would contact my face that it stung, each voracious raindrop feeling as if it were chewing out my cheeks, my nose, my eyelids. And I ran.

It began faintly, so masked by the sound of the rain smacking the pavement and my ears that I am quite unsure how long it had been present before I noticed it. Gentle and rhythmic, a polymeric thwacking from behind me. Not knowing what it was, but lilted into a kind of hypnosis by its rhythmicity, I pushed on into the darkness ahead, somehow encouraged by this not-so-frightening though unknown noise. And slowly, though whether over hours or minutes or days, I know not, the thwacking increased in intensity, until I could pinpoint the source, which, as I ran, seemed to keep up with my speed, but always remaining slightly out of my periphery, slightly behind me, over my right shoulder.

At this point, a fleeting realization fluttered across my brain that I might be in danger, but it was quickly suppressed by some exogenous force. And all at once, I felt somewhat comforted. Not fulfilled, not any less lost, but inexplicably comforted. And I continued to run.

And as I grew accustomed to the thwacking, so that my mind paid little conscious attention to it, I became aware of a faint noise, masked by the sound of the rain and the thwacking, and I realized I did not know how long it had been present. It was not unlike the thwacking, this thwomping sound, but for its irregularity. And I perked my ears, and strained to listen to the thwomping, and I noted its similarity to the thwacking. This sound was irregular not because it lacked periodicity, I realized, but because it was a composite. As the intensity increased as if the noise were approaching, I could hear the individual and rhythmic thwack, thwack, that contributed to the overall thwomp. And the sound grew.

It was like a song, almost, though I know if you heard it yourself, you’d first gouge out your eyes rather than believe me. A chacun son gout, je pense. But it was like a song, a melody-less tune that seemed to sing from the pit of my gut. It sang loud and rhythmically about the things I had done, and the things I was doing. It offered no forgiveness, but seemed to bear witness to my insecurity and pain and loneliness.

And for the first time, I felt truly alone. It’s strange really, how one can suddenly feel understood, and yet, whether it be the spawn of pride or of indifference, the doors never open. Or at least, I never opened the doors. And the knocking just got annoying. The sounds wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t leave me alone. Could not even the sounds in my head understand that I wanted to be alone, and run this race in solitude, confined to my single-laned journey?

And so it continued, the running, the thwacking, the thwomping, the constant noise, the constant noise, the constant noise the constant noise until I thought that my ears would break under the pressure and constancy of it all and the volume grew and kept on growing oh my goodness make it stop but then it grew nonetheless it’s not like anyone ever listens to me anyways no one cares about me or what I want or what I think even nature even angels even mystical sounds made up by my own imagination at the very time I want to be freaking by myself can’t you just stop the noise and let me suffer alone in peace in anguish in calm in denial my god I think I must be schizophrenic WHY CAN’T YOU JUST STOP THE SOUND and then I stopped running.

I didn’t fall.

I just stopped. It was over for me. I couldn’t run anymore. But neither could I cry anymore. I just stopped. And turned.

And saw all of you, running.

Thwack, thwomp, against the pavement.