A little something I wrote on the idea that if you could run fast enough, you would escape yourself, today and run straight into tomorrow...

When she was a child, she thought if she span around fast enough, she could cheat the clock and turn back time. She thought maybe if she could turn back time far enough, she would be warm again, and safe in her mothers’ womb. But, she was constantly reminded her spinning was in vain every time she lost her balance and hit the ground.

Once she read a book about a far away land that was easy to get to. The second star on the right, and straight on until morning. All she needed was to think happy thoughts, and sprinkle herself with a little fairy dust. The dust was easy to come by when you were eight years old, but the cast that soon covered her broken arm told her that her thoughts weren’t happy enough.

The nice ones called her ‘the dreamer’, to the not so nice, she was ‘the freak.’ She was the freak who would flap her arms wildly so she could join the birds in the sky, knowing very well that if she could fly, she would never come down. Why would she? Her head was already in the clouds, her body may as well join it.

She never did fly, she wasn’t strong enough. She grew up wishing she was a storybook, and a writer could write her over with a happy ending. Bu her wishing was just like her spinning, her thoughts and her flapping. Her wishing was in vain.

She prayed for her need to become greater than her want. But she soon came to a conclusion that maybe God had more important things to worry about than a girl who wanted to be in any world than the one He had created.

As she grew, the feelings became voices, and the voices wouldn’t leave her alone. Perhaps if he didn’t seen the world, it didn’t exist? No, they were still there, just like every time she tried to be somewhere else. She couldn’t turn back time. She couldn’t fly away to Neverland, or with the birds. She wasn’t a storybook. She was just a girl.

But she wasn’t just a girl either. A girl her age would be out having fun, wearing makeup, and talking about boys. She did none of those things, just stayed inside herself being taunted by voices only she could hear. ‘Perhaps,’ she would sometimes hear her own voice among those of the monsters. ‘Perhaps the not so nice ones were right all along. I am a freak.’

One day she started to run. If she ran fast enough, just a little further, in the direction the world turned, she could catch up with the sun. If she didn’t stop running, she could run right into tomorrow, and after that into the next day. Perhaps she could keep running into the future. That was a place where she didn’t exist, and a place where she didn’t exist was a place she wanted to be.

But her efforts were to be in vain. She ran clear to the end of the Earth, and ‘tomorrow’ wasn’t there. She always went to sleep after midnight. She’d said she wanted to make sure ‘tomorrow’ was already there, and would be there when she woke up. But it wasn’t until she stood at the end of the Earth did she realise that tomorrow wasn’t really there until she went to sleep.

She didn’t want to go to sleep. If she did to go to sleep, she knew the voices would be waiting for her when she woke up, in a world that was tomorrow.

She stared before her as she stood at the end of the world. One step and she would fall into a place where she didn’t know.

She’d always imagined the end of the Earth to be a vast blueness that was the sea. In her mind she had sailed on it many times, and was so close she could hear the dolphins calling her name. She always said to herself that if her ever made it to the end of the world, she would gladly sail away, and never come home.

Now she stood there, and one step was all it would take. She no longer would spin, think happy thoughts, flap or wish. She would no longer be the dreamer, or the freak. She’d made herself a storybook, and written herself away.

She was away from the world that didn’t understand her, from a reality she was never content with, and from a life she didn’t want.

All it took was a small step, and just like that, she was gone.