Run After Nothing

It was as if someone had taken a piece of burning wood and intended to hurt Annaliese with it. Her lungs burned as they searched for much needed air. Her breathing, unusually unstable, wasn’t doing much to help her lungs be proper lungs. The muscles in her legs throbbed, but she kept moving anyway. She ran to the beat of her old Sony Ericsson walkman and did her best to keep her head steady. Annaliese was used to this. She was used to running crazy until she could run no more. While other people hurt themselves or threatened to commit suicide when things got too tough to handle, Annaliese ran. She ran until she felt all the physical pain possible, and she continued running so she could feel numb. She ran to forget and then she kept running so she could forget why she was running. She ran until she felt dead.

It was probably torture, as what others told her from the past. But could she call it that if it made her feel better? Could it be torture if she enjoyed feeling the pain in her chest and the throb in her muscles? Was it considered as torture if it was the only thing she could do to put her life on pause momentarily?

She felt sweat dripping from her temples down to her pink lips. Annaliese could feel them running down her back. It was making her long blonde hair stick together in knots against her neck. It was during this time, when her face was contorted in fatigue and her body reeked of old gym socks, that she felt most alive. It was a time when she forgot she was living a life she hated. It was a moment when she did not have to think about the child that she had abandoned or the love that she has lost.

That was why it was more painful she snapped back to reality and realized that the whole time, she was running after nothing.