Assignment
14
Author’s Note: Our last assignment was to write a story of
any sorts, incorporating any of the elements discussed in the previous lessons.
This is short, and it’s based upon a recurring nightmare I have.
Grade Received: A
Pursuit
It seemed as
though the streets were running, and the streets stood still.
There
are lines to that effect in one of my favorite Emily Dickinson poems.
Another
goes something like this:
Because I could
not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me. The carriage held but just
ourselves and immortality.
That’s
from “Because I could not stop for Death.”
I
am named after Emily Dickinson.
It
is raining, and I am being pursued.
By
whom or by what, I do not know. All I know is that I am being followed.
They
do mean me harm—that I know. I know
because I can feel their malevolence in the very marrow of my diminutive bones.
But
who they are, or what they want, I do not know. Nor do I care.
So
I keep running. Onward, onward. Ceaselessly. I cannot stop, or I will die.
I
run through the vacant streets of an abandoned town. The weather beaten frames
of the empty buildings stand gray and stark like the bones of skeletons in mass
graves. The only light comes from the blindingly white full moon above. The night sky holds no stars in its infinite inky, impenetrable darkness.
Their
presence—those who wish me harm—is oppressively oblique. They are everywhere
and nowhere simultaneously. If I only knew what they wanted, I might have tried
to appease them at one time. I might have tried to acquiesce.
But
not now. I’m too terrified. And angry—in a panicked way. I have something they
want, and now they will not get it. Once I might have been open to negotiation.
But I am no more.
I
run further into the woods beyond the town. It is late autumn, and the trees
have shed the last of their polychromatic leaves. The hard, drab trunks of the
naked trees extend infinitely upwards, piercing the darkness of the night sky
above like ancient oxidized spears of cold, gray steel.
The
trees give me a sense of unidentifiable foreboding, and the slick, slimy leaves
impede my progress as I begin to climb a large, steeply graded hill.
I
hear no noises other than the ones made by my feet sliding on the slippery
carpet of leaves beneath me and my own labored, frightened breathing.
Until
I tumble to my knees as I crest the hill.
I
hear them—those who so aggressively seek me—yet I cannot describe the sound
they make. The sound is collective, uniform, terrifying, and unearthly.
Suddenly,
I know why they want me.
I
am an inconvenient woman—independent, headstrong, opinionated, intelligent, and
forthright—a force to be reckoned with, servile to no one—and I am to be
squelched and silenced for who I am, what I stand for, what I believe in, and
my audacity for existing.
I
am dangerous—more dangerous than any other being on the planet, and I must pay
for my sin.
I
turn to face them, unapologetic for what I am—for who I am.
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