Wireless Mouse Part 2: The Jog

Wireless Mouse Part 2: The Jog

A Chapter by Zack Sparks
"

Mari goes for a jog.

"

Mari stepped into her shoes and pulled the laces tight.  Her mind, in the beginning, was blank.


She left her room and closed the door, like it mattered.  Her parents were gone, Dad on one of his usual business trips and Mom out in town for some errands.  It was Saturday, and a beautiful day.  


Mari clipped her iPod on to the hem of her shirt and ran the earbuds under her shirt and up to her head.  This time, it was Drake.  He likes a woman with a future and a past, or so he says.


She stepped out the front door and locked it, putting the lanyard with the key on it around her neck.  Instinctively, she pulled her feet up her back, stretching.


It was morning, but not early.  Other kids, the younger ones, dotted a few of the driveways on her street, shooting basketballs and generally being kids.  A soft breeze tickled the trees, and their leaves rattled quietly in the distance.  Mari jogged to the driveway and down to the sidewalk.  


Every Saturday, Mari Lennox jogged to Champaign’s City Hall and back to her house.  It was a good distance away, but it gave Mari time to settle and retreat from the week’s battles.  As she jogged, the children she recognized waved at her.  She returned their smiles and gave a small greeting to each one.


School was going to start in a few days.  Summer was sighing, getting ready to fade into the colors of autumn.


The city of Champaign was pretty, Mari thought.  At least, it could be worse, and it wasn’t.  It was a middle ground in every way.  Central in Illinois, which was central in the United States, and a medium-sized population.  The growing city was dubbed as part of the Silicon Prairie, the developing areas of high-tech business development in the country.

This was to be Mari’s senior year of high school.  At the thought, her brain began to tingle with nervousness, stemming from the unknown void at Mari’s feet.


Mari was a highly touted women’s hockey player, a first-line winger.  Most notable on the ice was her speed.  She slid up and down the ice in a great fury of ice chips and the swishing, slashing sound of skates, speeding around would-be defenders with relative ease.  Hopefully, she had pondered on runs like this one, her skills on the ice would translate into a college scholarship.  The offers were rolling in, but women’s ice hockey wasn’t exactly basketball�"not many schools played the sport to begin with, and even fewer offered scholarships for it.  It would be a load off of her mind to wear the colors of a big hockey school and complete her education at the same time, but she wasn’t about to abandon her prodigious gifts in the wilderness just for the sake of a puck and some pads.  Her father earned good money as one of the directors of a national tool company, but had told Mari a few years ago that he would cover only half of her college cost.  His desire was to see Mari work hard to earn her way through the other half.


“It’ll be good for you, bean.”  Those were Eddie’s words.  “Builds character, and all that other Dad-type junk.”


In that moment, Mari quickly wished for a different set of parents.  Or, at least, that her current ones would take care of her college bill without question.  But the thought was pushed out of her mind quickly, because she decided she didn’t like it.  Eddie hadn’t gone to college, starting at the same tool company as a local sales representative.  Gradually, he impressed the right people, and had become quite the success story.  A merger here, a buyout there, and he found himself as the sales director on a national scale.  From nothing, to something.  Live where you want, set your own hours, and attend every single sales meeting, conference, and trip that you can.  Japan, China, India, Germany, Saudi Arabia�"all stops that Eddie Lennox had made on his journey to spread the good cheer of small power tools across the world.  He had worked his way out of his family, so Mari had eventually decided that it would be good for her to find some way to cover the rest of her college education on her own.  Ice hockey was looking more and more like the right answer, but her grades were quite good as well.


In all honesty, she had no reason to worry.  But still it was there, an itch on her brain.

Mari’s pace quickened, step after step, the rolling framework of bone and muscle in her legs propelling her body forward.  Before long, she had reached the City Hall, an old art deco building in the center of the city.  She slowed her pace to a stop and glanced at her iPod.  


Record time.


The streets were busy, but not bustling.  A woman talking on her phone here, two men in suits there, the occasional door opening as a small party emerged, gossiping and business-ing mindlessly.  Mari’s ponytail had loosened, and some hair had escaped her headband as well.


Mari thought about the return trip, but instead, she decided to stop in West Side Park and rest for a moment.  Her mind was usually pacing through a few different thoughts on jogs like this one, and she wanted a little more time to reflect.


While college had dominated this jog, during other times she would think about Brian.  Those thoughts remained short lived.  Mari kept a running number in her head of how many days it had been since he left.  On that day, with Mari resting on a park bench under a shade tree, that number was 587.  Most of the time, Mari’s jogging regimen brought her thoughts back to school, friends, events, and the tangled mess which connected each one to another.  This function�"say, a party�"brought those two together.  That led to the other so-and-so, which caused another somebody somewhere to question his or her own self.  


Dot to dot, a line drawing on a map of her social network.


However, sitting on the park bench under a shade tree, Mari decided to try something completely different.  She rested.  Completely rested.  Gone were her friends, gone was her family, and gone was Brian.  It was relaxing, almost like an autopilot feature had switched in her subconscious.  She sat alone on the bench, breathing softly, watching the world around her.


Some distance away in the park, she could see a young family.  The mother and father didn’t look much older than Brian, while the child on the spring horse looked no older than three.  More than likely younger.  The child�"Mari couldn’t tell at this distance if it was a boy or a girl�"bobbed up and down on the horse.  The child’s jerky movements in tandem with the spring horse made it look like a bobblehead doll.  As it shook back and forth, the two parents were looking at each other, almost like they were trying to pretend the child wasn’t there.  


After a bit longer, Mari stood and skipped to the next song on her iPod.  She pulled her feet again and took off, running for home, wherever it was.



© 2012 Zack Sparks


Author's Note

Zack Sparks
This scene is essentially still in the final work, but has been heavily revised.

Thanks for reading!

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Added on January 31, 2012
Last Updated on January 31, 2012


Author

Zack Sparks
Zack Sparks

Owensboro, KY



About
Hey all. I'm a budding game designer/writer, married with a beautiful baby girl. Anything else, well...you'll just either have to ask or just guess. more..

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