Running Through Thoughts

I’m walking away by choice, just to let you know. Though I suppose the more accurate verb would be ‘fleeing’. These days I never seemed to walk anywhere. I was always running.

Of course, even before I was walking, I was riding. I was always an outdoorsy type of girl, and my bike was my favorite object: the best thing I owned. It hadn’t been but three weeks before that I started walking.

My school’s small; the type of small where everybody is always into everybody else’s business. A bunch of nosy kids, and even teachers, if you ask me. I wasn’t exactly popular there, but everyone knew about me and my bike. Actually, it was my lack of popularity that caused the trouble in the first place.

One of the kids - I never did find out exactly who - decided to pull a prank they deemed just hilarious. Now let me tell you: by no stretch of the imagination was I the smartest pupil that school had ever seen. But for my lack of brains, I made up in size.

I told you before: I’m the athletic type. So obviously whoever decided to deflate my tire was going to keep that little fact on the down-low. It was probably one of those boys on the soccer team; they just keep getting shorter and shorter with every new team. Not to mention more snotty, stuck-up, and over all more devilish.

Since then, everywhere I went, I went on foot.

It was two weeks after my bike incident that everything started going downhill. First, I found out about my mama’s new boyfriend. Apparently they’ve been going out for a while now. She just hadn’t had the slightest urge to inform me about it.

Next, that horrible aunt of mine, who absolutely hates me is moving in with our family. She’s supposedly having some financial troubles, and needs a place to stay until she can get back on her feet. But I know better. She has plenty of money; she just spends it all on alcohol. She likes to think she’s all classy, but I know she always buys the cheap kind.

Right now I'm running because my mama just told me something no single child wants to hear. Not if they know better, anyways. My mama says she’s pregnant. There’s going to be a new baby in the house we need to take care of. That makes two in just this week. I don’t know how good mama’s latest eye candy is, but I’m hoping we won’t have a third since he’s moving in with us, too.

I’m running farther then I usually run, too. I run right past the park I usually stop at to watch people. I can usually calm down by doing that, and think things over. But right now, all I want to do is run. I’d like to imagine I was running away and never coming back, but I don’t know where I would stay.

Instead, I run straight to the general store down eight long blocks from my house. The general store is interesting for many reasons, including the manager himself. One of my favorite things, of all the trinkets and toys, is that gumball machine. It’s not a huge one: just one made to go in your room or somewhere in your home. You know, a personal gumball machine.

I’ve been trying to save up for that gumball machine for a couple months now. My mama says it’s stupid, what I want. She says the gumball machine is pretty pointless, and I reckon she’s right. It doesn’t stop me from wanting it, though. Imagine having your own candy machine; wouldn’t that just be dandy?

As I’m running, a woman with a stroller in tow comes crawling into view. The kid in the stroller just won’t stop messing with his shoe. It doesn’t look like he’s very happy with it. As I’m just about to run past, he chucks the shoe at me.

And get this: the mom doesn’t even stop, or even notice the missing shoe. I run for a few more paces, before halting on the sidewalk and looking back.

It was only one, but maybe I could give that shoe to my little sibling one day. And I could tell them all about how I’m a runner. Perhaps I’d even give ‘em a gumball afterwards.


730 words.