Have someone read this to you. Someone you know, who'll leave
out and add what you need.
About the little girl you could be or could've been or could've had, that little
girl, turn your head and look at something far away. There's always something
far away.
When someone sees you looking at something far away, they might try and tell
you what the story means, should mean.
That's the thing. This story can sit on the page. Like when no one's reading,
the little girl's not there then. She's riding the backs of other pages.
This story's forgotten. Over and over like memories of what you wish you wouldn't
have done.
And this story's never told and nothing ever happens instead.
You want her story to mean something, the little girl's, or will. She wants
that. When somebody's reading or listening, more than anything, you feel her
wanting meaning in a mean old world.
Fine.
You might believe what her story means says something about you, your story.
And the other way, your story brings meaning to hers.
O.k.
When she falls, gets up and stands in the lightning, and holds her hands above
her form-fitted, foil-hatted head, the whole scene silvers in flashes for you.
Fine enough then.
In the first few steps she still felt part of everything. She and the other
runners gathered, stretched quietly, took places, and at the sound of the shot
burst out of their starter's stances, together.
But like any other example from time, the second hand passing the minute, the
minute the hour, she was left behind.
And with a long way to go.
And the rain.
And the cheer for the winner, the increasingly less condolence for each runner,
intent to their last step, over running the line, leaning into their stop, hands
on their knees, looking up for a water bottle from an anonymous hand.
When she first fell she struggled straight to her feet.
And for a few steps ran the way she did once in her front yard, the same sun
somewhere in the sky.
Her competition, already part of the crowd, ran alongside her in an overabundance
of windmilling arms.
Then, losing form of herself, morphing into a set of flailing knees and elbows,
her head's heaviness pulled her face first and fake-looking into a short-stubbed,
knee-locked step that took her off track into the middle of everything. The
weight of her head snatched her this way then that, then finally back, somehow,
into the appropriate lane, where her sudden singing startled the crowd.
At her singing, kids walked up to their parents or somebody else's parents,
stood against their sides and waited out the chanted prayer-scat.
The clouds cut past the glare behind the rain, and the shine showed straight
through in spires like it was always there and water fell from the center of
the sky into the glow of it all.
Made the meaning go away.
You might not think so but light shows things for what they are.
So slow down. If you finish first you'll leave her there in this rain she's
in, again.
Damn.
And there's still that thing to happen with her wrapping her head in aluminum
foil. What you going to make of that?
Knowing something like that's to happen helps make sense of the singing, put
it someplace. Like they say sheet lightning is more blinding than slits sizzling
across the sky, lights everybody up from all angles, and it's hard not to feel
part of something, even in a story.
Right on the track people came closer to her, horse-shoed around her, positioned
the opening before her, for her, and moved more at her pace.
In the middle of the hard to place flashes of faces she fell again and in front
of her the sheet of aluminum foil you might wonder about came out of nowhere.
Off somebody's sandwich or maybe never made it to use. Maybe once torn from
the roll, it flew flatly and never formed for as far as it took to get to the
story.
And she picked it up as part of the process of picking herself up and ran with
the sheet of foil in front of her like the first page from a brand new chapter
of a shiny new book about sparkles.
Murmurs grew in the crowd about remembered rumors . Somebody long ago never
finished a race and where is he now? No one would recall even the next day after
that race.
Here's something nobody there at the race knows, not even the little girl running.
The person reading you this, they don't know this new part yet.
Imagine the possibilities and opportunities playing out on this page or in
this person's reports.
The one who never finished the race watches.
Now maybe this new part's a bad part. Maybe that's why he's never shown up
before. Maybe it means too much.
Ask the person reading you this to skip him being there if this is starting
to mean too much, or anything, for that matter. Certainly he doesn't know he's
never been here before. He can't know before besides the before now.
If you're still here that means enough.
The rain, like nickels, dimes and quarters, flipped from the bottom of the
sky, different shapes of shines showing up in reflections from the foil she
shaped.
And though her running resembled the broken beginning of another fall her hands
stayed graceful while she fashioned according to something she saw with her
eyes closed.
Putting the hat on her head, a new energy charged down her body and into her
legs and her step sharpened a few steps.
Really though, she was still so far from the finish you might want to stop
this. Ask the person telling you should you stop. It's reasonable, understandable.
More so than staying with this sort of story. Nothing reasonable or understandable
here, and it's going to get worse.
But maybe'll mean something this time.
Only don't think it must because you're this far.
It's a lot to ask for her to finish. She's run this race forever.
The one who never finished, he'll walk away. It's what he does.
She fell again and her hat came off.
She fell again and she left it there, flattened.
Somebody picked up her hat and held it by their side. You don't get a look
at their face, just the dull side of folded foil in their hand.
Then all you see is the form of her, then black.
You see what she sees.
She's face down at the edge of the track and you're with her. People are around
but no one picks you up.
There's the smell of old water and fresh dirt.
A long time ago you watched a bird fly the whole sky. Another time you felt
a school of small fish brush through your legs when you were wading in the lake.
Once you heard several cats outside your window and the time a cow with her
calf came up in your back yard you cried like you were hungry.
Those times all occur to you with your face in the ground.
Then it hits you.
Now you can help her.
First, if you wonder about her parents in all this, put them out there in the
world. Her mother started a new family in another state and her father's in
sales. One died and the other drinks. Or they're both there in the crowd, holding
hands wondering what to do, staying proud.
Doesn't matter.
This time it's you and her.
So what you going to do?
This asking too much?
A lot of people don't get this far.
She doesn't always get this far.
So.
Here's what you could do:
Take the meaning and run.
If you run with her, realize it's in the running. Some stories she never gets
there.
If you run away, so long.
There's the old prayer for the feet, having to do with the connection to earth,
and others through that grounding, and the connection then to all who've gone
before, the ashes to ashes, dust to dust thing.
One step, two step, old step, new step.
Hup, two, three, four.
There she is.
Through all this she's closer to the finish than ever and feels closer and
if she is to finish maybe she's done, won't have to run any more.
Amen.
Are you with her? Are you seeing her or seeing what she sees? Maybe this whole
time all you've seen are ugly-written words. It's not even been real. That's
the damn thing. Maybe it's not even been real.
Craig Wright teaches fiction at Southern
Oregon University. This is his second story for Lime Tea. His first
can be seen here.
