I slowly open my eyes. My vision is still blurry but I get up and drag my feet on my carpet to the bathroom. I brush my teeth, wash my face, and do my hair. I walk downstairs and turn on the news when I see that yet another black person was murdered. Yet again my eyes get blurry but instead of tired vision, I’m crying – not from sadness but fear. I feel my tear go down on my face slowly, I feel the soft yet salty liquid stream down my face. I try my best to forget the news and the fear the police and white people strike into our hearts, so I wash my face once again to get rid of the now crusty, dry stream of what previously was a tear. I prepare myself to leave so I just shove the thoughts to the back of my mind.
I open the door and I feel a burst of wind hit me like a bullet. I begin on my run and close my eyes. I feel so great having the wind hit me on my face, it makes me forget about all the fear and problems this world has. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to just be able to fly into a different universe, one with no problems, a place where everything is perfect. Not away from my problems, but straight into them. I’m still thinking about the depressing situation of the world, as a butterfly starts fluttering next to me, I stop running for a second and hold my breath. I attempt to be as quiet as I can to try and listen to its wings hit the air. I open my eyes to see no butterfly, yet I still hear the gentle flapping sound, I close my eyes to see if I can truly embrace it, but by the time I open my eyes again the sound is gone.
I want the sound to continue so badly I want to feel nature around me again, I want to embrace the earth. I begin to realize that this run wasn’t for me to forget about the problems, it was me trying to run away from my problems. It was for me to attempt to get away from everything. I don’t care anymore, I refuse to, this earth refuses to accept me so why should I keep fighting against it. I feel my footsteps hit the floor harder and I start to lose more energy. I stop running and start to accept nature again. I start running again and I feel like a feather.
The air feels so soft and smooth and it almost feels like the wind could just lift me away into the clouds where I would never have to deal with the problems of the human race again. I feel like I can run to the moon and back, I feel energized, I feel that I can change the world one step at a time. I’m not old enough yet to understand the world, but I am old enough to understand that it needs changing. It’s people like this that make this planet worth being on.
I find myself face to face with a building I’ve never seen before, it appears to be under construction yet I enter anyway, I slowly walk forward until I hear nothing at all.
I don’t know why but this feeling of no sound at all makes me upset, no sound, no life, it makes me so sad. I keep walking hoping to hear the faintest sound of life. I hear someone scream down for me to come out. I feel like I was just pulled back from my mind then thrown on the floor, without even a warning. I put my hands in my pocket without even thinking about it, when I finally get to the exit I’m face to face with a white man who’s holding a shotgun. I throw my hands up as fast as I can. I close my eyes as tight as I can, bracing for whatever pain I’m about to feel. When I open my eyes it almost feels like the world is in slow motion I can only hear one noise, the sound of his shotgun cocking. My legs are moving but my brain is on a repeat of just that one sound. All these thoughts are going through my brain, but one thought is larger than them all. Was he going to kill me?
I try to pull myself back to the real world when I hear his footsteps behind mine, it feels like I’ve been running for hours, I don’t even want to know how long it’s been, I turn around abruptly and shut my eyelids as hard as I can, I scream for him to stop, but suddenly there is this pinch in my chest. The pinch is turning into a spike being pressed into my chest. I feel my back hit the floor, my body’s getting weaker. I can’t manage the strength to lift my arms to touch my chest. I muster the strength to open my eyes and lift my head, through the blurry vision I had, I see one color and one color only…
red, red and more red.
I look over to my killer’s face, I have a tiny grin, I see that through my life I had lived such a happy life up to this point, why should I stop this now, why when I got so far would I stop being happy. My tiny grin turns to a large smile, I look at my killer one more time, I realize that although my story ends here, he will have to live with the fact that no matter how hard he tries he will be a killer for the rest of his life. I remember those times with my family and friends, the parties, and late nights out. It all hits me in repetition, like a never-ending punch. I can’t stop remembering the good parts of my life so I can’t stop smiling. I feel myself slowly losing the strength to hold up my head, so I let it slowly dip down until it’s finally on the floor. It’s just my head with the cold concrete. I open my eyes and look him up and down, his pants are covered in my blood, his eyes don’t even look phased, he appears to be satisfied with the deed that he just accomplished. My eyes are blurry again so I allow them to rest, I embrace the cold concrete, and sleep.
