Running from danger

She glances over her shoulder for shadows of danger. Her hair flutters on her back like the mantle of a superhero, struck by the chill of the evening. She is wearing a short, black dress made of a soft material that gently descends down her body, ending in valences that hit her feet like feathers. She has two shiny, sharp heels waving in her left hand with crimson blood dripping like a broken faucet from the tip of one of them. And her hair is straight as the trunk of a tree, but sweet as velvet, bouncing easily upwards from the hurried step. Her barefoot feet step on the rocky ground and walk in a straight line on the curb of the sidewalk.

She looks over her shoulder again, with worried eyes, searching for the danger. I look in the same direction and search for the unknown.

She speeds up, I speed up too.

She has an apple in her right hand, and on her shoulder hangs an expensive white purse with crystal pearls.

She turns her head once more and scouts the landscape behind her, but there is no one neither on the street nor near her. And she begins to climb the hill where the sun had sunk, now only clouds of cotton candy coloring the sky.

What is she searching with her stares? I look behind again...

She is searching for the danger. She hurries with sore legs to leave the danger behind. And she rushes... Her nails are long, white as the purse, clenched around the flushed apple.

Now I realize how different she is from me. Maybe, as I observe all about her, the danger from behind observes me, (I glance back once more) detailing my every move.

I have short and lively hair, the strands from my front coming out of my tiny spiky ponytail. I’m wearing a huge Nirvana hoodie with blood splashes on my collar, still fresh, dripping on the pavement. When I look down, it’s like that’s all I have on me, and the white dress underneath (soaked red) can’t be seen. I stare at my dirty sneakers, scribbled with a pen on the tip, and clutch the old dusty phone in my hand. My nails are bitten, small and uneven.

I think again about how different I am from the stranger in front of me.

Rush, rush, up the hill. If I saw her standing, I would say she is an angel or a demon, a being from other worlds, mystical and too beautiful. But she’s not, because she’s in a hurry, in a hurry, afraid of danger, climbing the deserted hill under the sunset. And I’m doing the same.

danger, danger, it’s coming, it’s going to catch you...

And I distract myself by looking at the stranger in front of me, magical as she is, scared as I am.

What danger is chasing her?

From what fear does she climb barefoot on the heated ground of summer?

Who knows... How many possibilities there are... full of dangers is this world, who knows which one is chasing her.

and I think again of my danger. His emotionless face... his scent still soaked in the hoodie... Maybe the stranger in front was walking away from the same danger, maybe she was coming from the same place...

But who knows, because this life is full of dangers.

And we climb, we climb, we climb, we leave the past behind, the dangers with it...

It could be said that we are climbing to the top, to a peak of everything that has happened. But the irony is that we know we won’t get there, because we keep climbing and climbing, looking for the point from which we can’t see the valley, but the valley is still there, full of danger, filling up with every pained step like a glass that has no end.

And we rush away from danger, we try, the stranger steps on the rocky ground and I breathe in his smell, still here, there, everywhere... the danger. We climb like clones in the mirror at a fast pace and faster and faster.... two strangers running from danger.

Then the road splits. She goes left, I go right. I continue to climb without stopping and I glance over my shoulder once more, one last time, a final frightened look down the hill. I lock my eyes on a flushed apple, rolling down, leaving behind a trail of blood.