The World Without Flags

I sit up, wanting to say I didn’t mean anything by it, but Eric is already too far away to stop and I sigh and lay back down. I don’t know why I say things like that or why I feel that way toward Eric sometimes, angry, but for no reason. I wish that I didn’t make things so complicated. Sometimes I wish that Lucia had lived and so hadn’t their baby, and Eric had a real child and no one would assume that I was his daughter. It would make things clear. Even between us. Then I would be. I would be…I don’t know who I’d be. I'm too tired to think about it.

Without wanting to, really, I imagine Eric and Lucia, holding a baby, and it’s obviously their baby. It has Eric’s eyes and Lucia’s hair, and they’re happy and laughing. But I don’t feel altogether happy about it. I feel strange and distant and even a little angry. I’m a horrible person. Sometimes I think I’m relieved that they died. Maybe if they hadn’t, I wouldn’t have a place with Eric any longer, not with my frizzy black hair and brown eyes and scrawny, black body. I breathe in deeply and I’m so ashamed of thinking such a horrible thing. It’s like a terrible weight inside me, like I’ve swallowed something unwholesome that’s rotting in me. I loved Lucia. But the horrible feelings continue and I open my eyes and sit up.

I need to run.

I’m tired, but I have to run. Actually, I’m more than tired. I’m whatever comes after that: beat, bushed, spent, wasted, exhausted. But like I said, I have to run. I get up and launch myself forward, away from Eric, away from the goon squad, away from everything. As I pick up speed, jogging down toward the fields, I feel lighter. I don’t really feel my legs. They’re just moving underneath me. By the time I reach the fields and I’m running past the goon squad and ignoring Pest watching me, I’m not tired at all. I’ve gone beyond tired into some other land. I feel light and invulnerable, so I run faster. I run past the farmhouse where Crystal is cooking. Artemis is probably with her, maybe even watching me through the window, though I don’t turn my head to see. I run past the fences which Norman and Anthony are fixing. I wave and they stop for a second to wave back. People are used to me running, so they don’t think anything of it.

I run south and pick up speed on the flat, dirt road headed toward the southern watchtowers. I’m not even out of breath yet and I feel like wind, like there’s nothing to my body at all. So I run faster and harder. I feel the wind in my hair and the dark thoughts are burning out of my head like a putrid fog. It feels better than good, it feels divine. I close my eyes and feel my heart beating blood all through my body, my breathing coming in and out and feeding my body like it was a huge, red hot furnace. When I reach the woods, the trees flash by on each side of me. The feeling is incredible and it’s like I can do this forever. I can feel it burning away my thoughts and my feelings, my shame, anger, and confusion. It burns me all away until I’m just fire itself scorching over the land.

When I reach the watchtower, I do a quick U-turn and wave up at Fiona who’s taking her turn at watch. She waves down at me as I pick up speed, heading back to the Village. I plan on running as fast as I can straight to bed, my head cooked clean of all its thoughts so I can sleep in peace. Just the thought of my bed makes me pick up speed again.  I run by the same fields and wave again at Norman and Anthony, but I don’t wave at the goon squad as I zip past. When I start going uphill, I run faster, just for the challenge. Now my lungs are starting to hurt and my legs are starting to burn. The pain is nice. Not all pain is bad. This is good pain. It tells me I’m alive and capable because I run through it. I blast uphill, curving in and out of the winding paths we’ve made around our log homes. I almost knock over Beth as she comes out of her house, but I jump to the side just in time.

By the time I get to our house, the burning is so intense that I have to walk around the house, gasping for air. I lean over, and then I feel my consciousness swerve a little. I feel sick. I lean against the house. Sweat is starting to drip off me. I watch them make little wet circles in the dirt at my feet. I think somewhere in my head that it was pretty stupid to run like that when I was exhausted already. I should’ve eaten something. I should’ve just gone to bed. But I’m stubborn. I feel somehow vindicated by my pain, like it’s right that I should feel it and it makes me strong. I stand up and laugh, but I don’t quite know why. It’s like I’m two people. One is very tired and she’s watching what the other one is doing. Luckily for me, this other one stumbles in the house and climbs up the ladder into the loft and before I know it, the both of us are laying down and one of us is laughing, but I don’t know which.

I sleep like the dead.

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