Run Away

“Do you want to run away?”

The soft wind whispered gently to her ears, stroking her long, black hair with its gentle, loving, but invisible fingers. The wind seemed to comfort her, and this comfort the wind brought her, it was a familiar feeling. A feeling from memories gone by. A feeling, from the fading recesses of her mind. Sometime long ago. When she was young. When she was happy.

The streets were quiet. The moon lighted the night with a reluctant shine, the streetlights flickering, dimming themselves more by the moment. She couldn’t see the streets clearly. The darkness was taking over, painting vague silhouettes in the background. She quickened her pace, aware of the dangers of the night, the sinister shimmering of the moon. It was quiet. Too quiet. Not even the owls could be heard. Silence, except for the whispering wind.

“Well, do you?”

Did she? She couldn’t quite decide. She had a stable job at an up-and-coming company, a good life in a posh apartment in the centre of the city, and many friends who she could call at nights if she felt lonely. She had wild nights out in the city with her colleagues, after which she would wake up in the morning either completely hungover and not remembering anything, or waking up to some stranger she met at a club, and then feeling worthless after all that. She could never say she was disappointed with how her life turned out, but she also could never say she was genuinely happy with it either.

The question repeated itself in her head over and over again, as if demanding an answer. An immediate answer that she could never quite come up with. The wind then brushed against her cheeks, with a cold and heavy swipe. The splinters of winter pierced her skin. She turned away from the direction of the wind. It was now hurting her, with its cold and lifeless claws. The cold clawed itself into her skin, reaching her bones, causing her to shiver with the most violent of shivers. But shivering only made it worst. The more she shivered, the deeper the claws pierced her skin. The crueller the pain. Most definitely this reminded her of days when she was young. When she told herself that she was happy.

Of course, she was happy at first. She loved every minute spent with him. She savoured those moments. Times when he carried her on his back along the sandy beaches back home, with the orange sun watching them as it faded into the distant horizon. Times when he would surprise her with a bouquet of freshly-picked roses in dark red clusters. Times when he stroked her hair softly and slowly, running his fingers along her smooth, silky hair, whispering how much he loved her, while they danced in the darkness of still night. And she was happy.

Everything seemed to go perfectly for the both of them. She and he were talking about getting married, having children of their own, and growing old together, sitting on the front porch of a countryside home, reminiscing of how young and how in love they were, and how they still would be. But he began to change.

It started when he asked her if she wanted to get away from the place they called home. Away from everyone else. When he said that it would be so much better to leave and start a new life together. He talked of exploring the world, living their lives with the exhilaration of spontaneity. And sometimes she wanted to be convinced by him to go. But she was far too rational and to leave the comforts of home so early an age, when she was told she had lots of potential, to just risk it all in the name of love.

The darkness of the night was blanketing her. She could barely see the vague figures from a distance, if only with a little help from the moon. The vague figures served as signposts to her way home. She could see the large billboard that seemed to change its face every week, so much so that the only way she could tell it was the same one was that it had graffiti at the back of it that resembled something like ‘Style’, or ‘Steal’, or even ‘Stag’ for all she cares. But in the night, all of it was just fused into one single massive silhouette. A different shade of black amongst other slightly different shades of black, that was painted by the slight shine of the moon, with its soft, intricate brushes, subtle in its strokes. As a result some of the usually recognisable landmarks were transformed into shapeless figures, morphing into hundreds of different forms of beings at once, and yet still retaining their shape enough to be barely recognisable.

The mutterings and mumblings of the night were becoming unintelligible to her, the sad and ignored voices muffled by the cold, heavy nocturnal winds. The ten-minute walk home always seemed like forever to her. A lingering pain of having passed by and ignoring things she shouldn’t have passed and ignored never fails to haunt her in those ten minutes. Flashes of days gone by went whizzing past her head, some she didn’t even realise she had.

As total darkness descended, the faint sound of her footsteps faded into the night, and the moon didn’t move, still looking down, shimmering, unsatisfied, and deep down, it was mournful.