"Run for Your Life" - Day 349: 5 Minute Freewrite: Prompt: running in place

Here is my 5 minute #freewrite on today's prompt: running in place. You guessed it: I kept going long after my 5 minutes were up. If you'd like to join the fun, check @mariannewest's blog each day for a new daily prompt. This one is Day 349: 5 Minute Freewrite: Thursday - Prompt: running in place

Running was my life,

my go-to, my one way to get high. Until Dad.

"Trying to extend your life by running," he reminded me every single time I laced up my Nikes. "It'll get you killed quicker than a heart attack."

Wheelchair-bound ever since a hit-and-run driver paralyzed him on the last jog of his life, Dad had good reason to be concerned about my own safety.

"You run alone on country roads," he persisted. Daily. Ad infinitum. "If it’s a change of scenery you want, get it from the safety of a car. At least find someone to run with you."

"But, Dad, I run for the pleasure of it, not just to build a strong heart and live longer."

He'd smile up at me from his beloved MOTOmed movement trainer, and I was so grateful to have him alive, and cheerful, and still doing his best to take good care of himself and his only child, how could I blow off his advice?

How could I quit running?

Then that college freshman, Molly, got abducted and knifed and dumped in a cornfield, where she lay rotting in the heat and humidity of summer for weeks. Dad still didn’t get me to give up my morning runs, but he insisted I carry a can of mace and maybe a knife and a gun.

Not gonna happen, Dad.

"Alexa," he said. It was his favorite thing, like waving a magic wand and having his wishes granted. "Order a can of mace for my stubborn daughter."

I frowned at him. He just smiled. "Alexa. Tell us a joke. The stubborn daughter needs to lighten up."

The voice Dad loved and I hated spoke. "Why did the pillow cross the road?"

Dad grinned. "You tell me. Why did the pillow cross the road?"

"To collect chicken feathers," Alexa replied.

Dad howled with laughter, which got me laughing too. Chicken jokes never failed to crack him up.

I found a pocket for the mace. I kept running. After losing Mom to a heart attack, which maybe could have been prevented if she'd worked out more, I wasn't going to die young and leave Dad alone in the world.

Fall came with a glorious color show and blinding blue skies, and I ran for sheer joy. I loved the barren branches and pewter skies of November, but the snow and ice of of December got Dad all worked up. I had to concede, it might be ok to run indoors now and then.

He was ready. Dad, thanks to a gorgeous Scottish doctor named Libby McGugan on a Ted talk on YouTube, found her website on Virtual Reality headsets for healing. He got a VR set and loved it so much, he got me one too. He'd keep me safe inside the house, feet pounding a treadmill, head immersed in landscapes so vivid and real it was better than an actual outdoor run. Or so he promised.

My set must have come with some sort of defect. I selected the red-rock country of Sedona, only to have static scenes from somebody's home surveillance cameras sneak in. Wow, great view of cars crawling past some guy's front porch on an icy morning.

"There's something wrong with this thing," I told Dad, handing it off to him.

He couldn't see the footage from some nearby camera, so he opted for a run through Yellowstone and got it. "Try again," he said.

I ran through Yellowstone for forty minutes. The next day, though, I was running in the Adirondocks for only half an hour before another blip showed me a dog chained to a tree in someone's backyard. Was this footage for real?

I showered, got into the car, and drove around town until I spotted a Doberman chained to an oak tree. Perfect match to the scene in my VR set. The shaved-head who came scowling the door didn't take kindly to my suggestions for better treatment of man's best friend.

Even running in place in the safety of my own house could be dangerous.

The treadmill was deadly dull, but the changing locations of my daily run had its merits. I ran the Swiss Alps, the rocky seacoast of Maine, the Great Wall of China, green hills of Ireland, the Black Forest.

It couldn't last. Static, a visual snow flurry, and then some surveillance camera would break in. I saw a petite blonde with a ponytail jogging down Main Street of some small town with old brick buildings. A dark SUV followed her. I got the license plate fixed in my mind, just in case.

Over morning coffee the next day, Dad read the headlines from his tablet: "College Student Reported Missing."

"Dad," I said. "Do not tell me she was last seen on Main Street of some little town, with a blonde ponytail."

He rotated the tablet for me to see. I almost fainted.

"I have a license plate for the police to check out," I said.

Dad cocked an eyebrow at me. "More interference in that VR?"

"Yeah." I described what I'd seen, then gulped the last of my coffee and stood. "I've got to call the police tip line. With any luck, this one is still alive and they can get to her in time."

"I have no idea what's going on with that VR set," Dad said, "but I'm beginning to think you should hand it off to some police officer before you need witness protection. This thing could get you killed, you know."

"Dad, you worry too much."

But the hairs rising on the back of my neck told me the apple hadn't fallen far from the tree.

"Alexa," I said. "Call the police."

Photos:
Woman jogger
The MOTOmed movement trainer