Opening

Opening sequence from the unfinished novel, I Ran (working title).

I ran, through the trembling trees, the broken grass; the thundering ache of my body in near sync with the deafening thunder of the sky. Stumbling, falling, knees red with the gashes of panic and distress, blood seeping from my wounds like fresh summer sap engulfing a tree branch. Splattered pools of blood, fluid and vomit marked my path as I progressed further into the brush. I had no plan, no direction, only the sense of urgency that flooded my veins like ocean water swallowing a capsized vessel. I was screaming, I was sure of it, the raw ache of my throat throbbed and pulsated in a distorted symphony alongside my heart. Still, I ran, my pace just grazing the expectation of my panic and fear. It was happening, as much as I refused to accept it, it was all real, and the truth of my ignorance would now tear from my body the way a flower breaks from the soil. The seed was sown and now the harvest was edging on its bloom.

     A rock seized the tip of my right shoe, my face slapping the earth with a fluid force graced by the kiss of gravity. Water began to torpedo down from the angry sky, the drumming thunder separated its conjunction with the flashing light of heat and energy. The heavens seemed to split open, stars now visible through the billowed dark clouds, the stillness of the universe silent and peaceful beyond the canopy of rage that echoed and danced above me.

     I lifted my face from the freshly damp dirt, my eyes heavy with lumps of debris that now cemented over my lids and dangled lifelessly from my lashes. My legs felt numb as the pressure of my belly twisted and yanked from my core like the splitting of the continents, their march carefully planned and executed by the magma deep below the surface.

     "Oh my God!" I bellowed into the night, my throat filling with water, my soaked hair crawling across the filth covered skin like vines reaching over a forgotten tombstone.  "Please God! Please!"

     I shifted my legs back, their weight dull and heavy like two corpses sadly left from the grave only to rot and decay from the lower of my body. Hands back, spine arched, face lifted towards the bright stars, the cadaver-like limbs of my lower extremity convulsing open, the entrance to my womb erupting in blind fury and sin-lust agony.

     The fire of my throat flared and fumed under the enormous eruption of my screams. The drum-like roll of the thunder could not soften the howls of my voice. It felt as though the piercing sound was slicing and scraping the lining of my throat from within, a wet drip as if blood seeped down towards the darkness of my core. Alienated, alone, lost in a sensational hell, me, a girl of only fifteen, bore the lot of all womankind in a brush-lined clearing of a nameless forest.

     The child slid though my birth canal as tight and slothful as a serpent swallowing prey twice its size. Intimate skin stretched, popped, and tore as the infant's head fell onto the rain-drenched earth. The falling water pounded the ground around me in a violent and forceful drowning. Pools of liquid snaked across the patches of soil and brush searching for a gathering place. The deafening roar of the downpour filled the space of sound and echo, droning the world beyond to a silent and forgotten memory. Wiping the matted hair from my eyes, I reached towards my child. Carefully, tenderly, slowly, I lifted the tiny body into my arms, the trailing umbilical cord dragging across the rising puddles as heavy and cumbersome as a led rope.

     Stillness, silence, a cold vacancy of life is what met my water-stained chest. Through the blurred chaos of the storm, I could make out the tiny face, the features frozen and peaceful, the little hands fused together, the sparse raven hair sealed across the scalp in a mixture of fluid and rain.

     "No.." I whispered, my voice raw, trembling and meek. "No..."