This is a bit of a spin off from my story "Flight of the Spirit". The character writes quite a bit in a notebook and I sat down one night curious as to what he would write, so I sat down and sort of used this as a creative jam session to help me get inside the characters head. Really I just kinda let my mind go blank and let the fingers just start hitting keys. When I re-read it I found that it sorta wrote itself. In any case, I thought I would put it up for you all to take a look at, and by request, since I plan to continue the story that spawned this bit of writting I may well drop in from time to time and update this piece as the character himself continues to evolve and change. Hope you enjoy
G.X. McBride
"Hey Spirit, what do you get out of writting in that notebook anyway?" Everyone keeps asking me that. The truth is I'm not really sure myself. I suppose it's just my way of keeping things straight you know? It's cheaper than a shrink, it helps me keep things in perspective.
At least I know that when I go back and read over this stuff that it will be exactly what I wrote when I put pen to paper. This city is so screwed up, everything is published laundry room clean, glossed over, nice and neat for the good citizens out there. Good citizens? I don't know if I really believe that. How can someone live in a society like this and believe everything is ok? It's so neat, and clean, and polished up. Everything shines so brightly, everyone smiles, it's all mom, dad, and apple pie. Pure crap, and anyone who says otherwise is BLIND. The bad things in this world don't go away simply because you refuse to acknowledge they exist.
I know that well enough. I used to be like them. School, parents, a medium size apartment, a mid sized sedan, family togetherness, polite in class, reading the books they told us to, watching the shows they wanted us to. I woke up. Dark things eventually find us all, and if the past has taught me nothing else, it has taught me that you don't avoid it by hiding your head in the sand, that only allows it to catch you by surprise. You can't change the world by pretending things are perfect when they arn't. My life was like the peds once. Then some dark night the alarmclock rang, my life fell apart and I had two choices. Face it. Or run away from it. That's when I became a Runner.
Runner, running away? No, not the same things at all.
The Runners like me know what we're about. We look the world in the eye and meet it on our own terms, in our own way. We don't pretend to see a rose when we're looking at a bird turd. We might not all agree completely on what the world should be, but none of us are under any illusions about the way the world actually IS. People may say we're criminals and we should be locked up. The truth is THEY are the ones locked up, this entire city is just one big open air prison. No walls, no boundaries, but a prison none the less. People say that the Runners are criminals, and maybe we are. But I say we're the only people in this entire city that are truely free.
What bothers me the most is that it's a prison that everyone actually CHOOSES to live in. It's easier to think what other people tell you to think, do what's acceptable, say what's considered appropriate. Maybe most people are happy that way, but I just can't see it. If the words you say come not from your own mind, but from some socially acceptable standard, then you're nothing more than a mouth piece, a simple puppet with invisible strings for the those that try to conceal the truth of the world, and the real meaning of being able to communicate with others. If you choose to live like that, I have to ask, is it really living at all?
This entire stainless steel, polished glass and concrete city around us is nothing more than a giant tombstone. Running is a dangerous life, we jump off of buildings, sometimes we get shot at, or get into fights. Sometimes we slip. It's a life that can be suddenly, unavoidably taken away from you, forever, and should that happen you may lose everything in a split second. But we're the only people in this entire city that are actually ALIVE. That is, actually alive untill we fall off a building, or break our necks, or get shot? No, I don't think so. The common perception of a lifetime is a measurement of time, usually in years. I believe a lifetime should be measured in events, varried, unique, and ultimately wonderful in being different. I run across roof tops. I've been shot at before. I know what it feels like to sprint through half a city with the police close behind, bullets coming by close enough that you feel them, the fear giving your feet wings. I've stood atop the tallest buildings of this city, and sprang from them with nothing to keep me safe, save my own skills and reflexes. Compare all of that with the life of a man living a nondescript, life. Who meets no one new, does the same job every day, eats the same meals every day, drinks the same flavorless bottle water every day. Reads the newspappers every day to find that the stories change, but the messages do not. Wich of us has lived more? Give me one day of my life for one hundred years of his.
Not long ago I asked myself if all of us Runners were out of a job if that would be a good or a bad thing for the city. I suppose that, like most things, is a matter of perspective. From one perspective, the criminals we work for would have to find a new way to communicate. From a law enforcement, and perhaps a moral perspective, that would largely be good. From my perspective of things, it wouldn't make any difference. Look at all of us. If something happened tomorrow and we couldn't do what we do, what would change for us? We might have to find another source of employment, but we would still be the same people. Running is what we do, it's a social order perhaps, but it does not define who we are. In fact, quite the opposite. WE are the Runners. When someone talks about Running, they talk about US. It is us who define what a Runner is, by our own word or deed. Even if we were unable to do the things we do, you can no more change the people we have become than you can alter the color of the sky. We represent a minority, possibly the last minority, of people who still think for themselves, to whom resistance to those who tell us to become like others is second nature, and as deeply ingrained into our very souls as the spots of a leopard are upon its fur. People may resent us, or hate us, or call us criminals and seek to imprison us. And that's ok with us. We don't do what we do for them. We arn't trying to change the world. Only to survive in it, in our own way. We don't run for the masses. We run for ourselves.