the runner
[A short story written in 1999, taken from the unfinished series 24 hours]
+++
After the accident I suffered from insomnia. I found it upsetting, lying awake, with too many things on my mind, unable to lose myself in sleep. This went on for a month or so, and as I couldn’t see any sign of it stopping, I decided I’d better do something, so one night I put on my tracksuit, laced up my trainers and went running.
I didn’t know where I was going. I just ran around the block three times. When I got home, I found it had worked: I fell asleep almost straight away. The next night I followed the same routine, and it worked again. The third night, I felt tired anyway: I’d had a particularly stressful day at work and by the time I got home I was almost in tears. After two nights of good sleep I thought that my body might allow me a third one for free. So I went to bed without running, and didn’t fall asleep until after the dawn.
From then on I went running every night. I soon got bored of running round the block, and found myself exploring the back ways around my house, and then, as I got fitter, I found myself running further, into areas I barely knew at all. The parks are shut at night, so you have no option but the roads. I used to go to sleep around midnight - it made sense for me to run for an hour or so around eleven. I soon realised that this involved devising a route which steered clear of the pubs. Being a lone female in a tracksuit going past a pack of men stumbling about at closing time was just an invitation for trouble.
I ended up with a circuit which took me from my flat in Stockwell, through the back streets of The Oval and Kennington, up to the river at Waterloo, and then back down along the Embankment, past the Houses of Parliament. I’d time myself by Big Ben: if the face said later than twenty to twelve on my way home, I knew I was late, if earlier, I reckoned I was making good time. Running along the river at night is pleasant enough, and the Embankment is well lit, so it’s safe. The only section of the run that ever made me nervous was the last ten minutes or so, after I turned off from the river and headed along the streets behind Wandsworth Road, near the big Sainsburys.
The first time I saw the tiger, I wasn’t all that scared, because I thought it was a dog. Dogs will run alongside you for a hundred yards or so, but they never bother me. I don’t think they like the way I smell. I soon leave them behind. I was on the first ten minutes of the run, near The Oval cricket ground. It’s a slightly odd area. I was always glad to get it out of the way. A real mixture of pleasant, terraced houses, with gardens which smell sweetly in the Summer, and large concrete Council blocks, which seem to belong to no-one and smell only of piss. Often the pretty houses face directly onto the council blocks, as though the two are taunting each other. As soon as I’m past the cricket pitch, the roads get a bit wider and it all feels more relaxed: it’s just those first ten minutes which are awkward.
It looked like a very large dog, just standing on a crossroads, waiting. I had to run straight past it, and I expected it to bark, or follow me or something. It was only when I’d crossed the road and left it behind that it struck me that there was something odd. I stopped, half-turned, and looked over my shoulder. The dog was sitting down, and I saw that it sat like a cat. A cat big enough to be a dog, with stripes.
I kept running. Marcus had told me before about how, when you go running, it affects the brain in all sorts of way. It gets chemicals flowing that don’t normally get used. That’s why it can feel trance-like, at times, when you’ve gone through the initial pain. As I carried on running, I thought about all this, and decided I must have seen an apparition or something. A trick of the brain. Five minutes later, a wave of fear swept over me. I thought: I’ve just run past a tiger ! I almost ran to the nearest tube to get home as soon as I could, but decided to keep going. By the time I got home I’d deliberately chosen not to think about it anymore, and slept soundly.
Things were easing up at work. Life had begun to feel easier. It didn’t seem to be hurting quite as much. I was sure that the running had something to do with this. The enforced loneliness, coupled with the physical strain, took me out of myself. If I felt depressed, it was a relief to know that I had the run to fall back on, at the end of the day. The run which allowed me to sleep, which helped me sweat the sorrow from my system.
Two weeks after the first sighting, I saw it again. This time there was no doubt. Further up towards the river than the last time, it bounded out across the street. The streetlights lit up zagged stripes. I came to a sudden stop, standing, my knees locked. It stopped too. In the middle of the road. Looked up and down, and then moved on.
I stayed where I was, in shock, feeling fear pulse through me. I became aware of my breathing. Took my eyes away from the spot where the tiger had stood. Heard the background noises of the street again: cars, words, a humming.
The spot where the tiger and I met was half way between Kennington and Waterloo. I was no more than three minutes from a main road, which would allow me to blend in, increase the range of the tiger’s targets. Still, I couldn’t move. The terror of moving forwards seemed no different from the terror of standing still. As though every path took me towards the carnivore. The unreality of having just seen a tiger in the centre of a city hadn’t struck me. The only thing I felt was fear.
There’s no real way for me to explain what happened next. The easiest thing is to just say that, somehow, I decided to keep on running. The processes by which I made that decision, and then executed it, seem so complex to me now that the truth is, rather than try and explain them, I’m content to let them slip beneath the cover of that far simpler expression. I decided to keep on running. What I am aware of is, having achieved this choice, finding myself running along my normal route, up to the South Bank, along the river, past the Houses of Parliament, under Lambeth Bridge, all the way home, I had achieved something courageous. I’d confronted fears within me that I had not been forced to confront before. Of course, this is all tied up in some way with Marcus, and the accident, and the fact that I survived, not just the accident, but afterwards, the hardest days, when there seemed to be no point in anything.
I had little option but to carry on with my routine. I imagined an ancestor, in the wild, having a similar moment of terror, and realised that these things would have been everyday occurrences. Nothing you could allow to interrupt the way you lived your life, the paths you were required to take. You had to learn to live with the fear. Which I did, my apprehension diminishing as the weeks passed. The tiger never reappeared. I still run now, though less often. Once or twice a week. I run half hoping to spy the tiger again. But I don’t expect to see it. If it hasn’t been caught, it will have moved on, or returned to the savannah.
+++
After the accident I suffered from insomnia. I found it upsetting, lying awake, with too many things on my mind, unable to lose myself in sleep. This went on for a month or so, and as I couldn’t see any sign of it stopping, I decided I’d better do something, so one night I put on my tracksuit, laced up my trainers and went running.
I didn’t know where I was going. I just ran around the block three times. When I got home, I found it had worked: I fell asleep almost straight away. The next night I followed the same routine, and it worked again. The third night, I felt tired anyway: I’d had a particularly stressful day at work and by the time I got home I was almost in tears. After two nights of good sleep I thought that my body might allow me a third one for free. So I went to bed without running, and didn’t fall asleep until after the dawn.
From then on I went running every night. I soon got bored of running round the block, and found myself exploring the back ways around my house, and then, as I got fitter, I found myself running further, into areas I barely knew at all. The parks are shut at night, so you have no option but the roads. I used to go to sleep around midnight - it made sense for me to run for an hour or so around eleven. I soon realised that this involved devising a route which steered clear of the pubs. Being a lone female in a tracksuit going past a pack of men stumbling about at closing time was just an invitation for trouble.
I ended up with a circuit which took me from my flat in Stockwell, through the back streets of The Oval and Kennington, up to the river at Waterloo, and then back down along the Embankment, past the Houses of Parliament. I’d time myself by Big Ben: if the face said later than twenty to twelve on my way home, I knew I was late, if earlier, I reckoned I was making good time. Running along the river at night is pleasant enough, and the Embankment is well lit, so it’s safe. The only section of the run that ever made me nervous was the last ten minutes or so, after I turned off from the river and headed along the streets behind Wandsworth Road, near the big Sainsburys.
The first time I saw the tiger, I wasn’t all that scared, because I thought it was a dog. Dogs will run alongside you for a hundred yards or so, but they never bother me. I don’t think they like the way I smell. I soon leave them behind. I was on the first ten minutes of the run, near The Oval cricket ground. It’s a slightly odd area. I was always glad to get it out of the way. A real mixture of pleasant, terraced houses, with gardens which smell sweetly in the Summer, and large concrete Council blocks, which seem to belong to no-one and smell only of piss. Often the pretty houses face directly onto the council blocks, as though the two are taunting each other. As soon as I’m past the cricket pitch, the roads get a bit wider and it all feels more relaxed: it’s just those first ten minutes which are awkward.
It looked like a very large dog, just standing on a crossroads, waiting. I had to run straight past it, and I expected it to bark, or follow me or something. It was only when I’d crossed the road and left it behind that it struck me that there was something odd. I stopped, half-turned, and looked over my shoulder. The dog was sitting down, and I saw that it sat like a cat. A cat big enough to be a dog, with stripes.
I kept running. Marcus had told me before about how, when you go running, it affects the brain in all sorts of way. It gets chemicals flowing that don’t normally get used. That’s why it can feel trance-like, at times, when you’ve gone through the initial pain. As I carried on running, I thought about all this, and decided I must have seen an apparition or something. A trick of the brain. Five minutes later, a wave of fear swept over me. I thought: I’ve just run past a tiger ! I almost ran to the nearest tube to get home as soon as I could, but decided to keep going. By the time I got home I’d deliberately chosen not to think about it anymore, and slept soundly.
Things were easing up at work. Life had begun to feel easier. It didn’t seem to be hurting quite as much. I was sure that the running had something to do with this. The enforced loneliness, coupled with the physical strain, took me out of myself. If I felt depressed, it was a relief to know that I had the run to fall back on, at the end of the day. The run which allowed me to sleep, which helped me sweat the sorrow from my system.
Two weeks after the first sighting, I saw it again. This time there was no doubt. Further up towards the river than the last time, it bounded out across the street. The streetlights lit up zagged stripes. I came to a sudden stop, standing, my knees locked. It stopped too. In the middle of the road. Looked up and down, and then moved on.
I stayed where I was, in shock, feeling fear pulse through me. I became aware of my breathing. Took my eyes away from the spot where the tiger had stood. Heard the background noises of the street again: cars, words, a humming.
The spot where the tiger and I met was half way between Kennington and Waterloo. I was no more than three minutes from a main road, which would allow me to blend in, increase the range of the tiger’s targets. Still, I couldn’t move. The terror of moving forwards seemed no different from the terror of standing still. As though every path took me towards the carnivore. The unreality of having just seen a tiger in the centre of a city hadn’t struck me. The only thing I felt was fear.
There’s no real way for me to explain what happened next. The easiest thing is to just say that, somehow, I decided to keep on running. The processes by which I made that decision, and then executed it, seem so complex to me now that the truth is, rather than try and explain them, I’m content to let them slip beneath the cover of that far simpler expression. I decided to keep on running. What I am aware of is, having achieved this choice, finding myself running along my normal route, up to the South Bank, along the river, past the Houses of Parliament, under Lambeth Bridge, all the way home, I had achieved something courageous. I’d confronted fears within me that I had not been forced to confront before. Of course, this is all tied up in some way with Marcus, and the accident, and the fact that I survived, not just the accident, but afterwards, the hardest days, when there seemed to be no point in anything.
I had little option but to carry on with my routine. I imagined an ancestor, in the wild, having a similar moment of terror, and realised that these things would have been everyday occurrences. Nothing you could allow to interrupt the way you lived your life, the paths you were required to take. You had to learn to live with the fear. Which I did, my apprehension diminishing as the weeks passed. The tiger never reappeared. I still run now, though less often. Once or twice a week. I run half hoping to spy the tiger again. But I don’t expect to see it. If it hasn’t been caught, it will have moved on, or returned to the savannah.
posted by maldoror at 02:35
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