You Won't Catch Me

I wrote an essay for my nonfiction writing class, and I'm rather proud of it. Enjoy.



I laced on my shoes, the dim light filtering through the partially drawn window blinds and casting a dim gray glow on my body. I stepped outside and inhaled deeply. The air tasted of water and storm, quickly subduing the storm in my mind. All was still. The sky was filled with a thick gray woolly beast, barging its way across the heavens. The trees stood still, soldiers with their bayonets pointed straight up toward the ominous creature threatening their domain. My feet thudded against the asphalt.
The climb began. Pound. Pound. Pound. My feet meeting the hard ground was a raucous laughter in my ears, no other sound attacked me save for a lawnmower chugging in the distance. Yelling, harsh words, anger. I shook my head, trying to make sense of what had occurred, and why my mind had latched onto something with a death-grip. A breeze tickled the tips of the trees.
Pound. Pound. Pound.
“You are such a JERK!” he screamed, face filled with fury.
Pound. Pound.
“I’m getting out of here.” I headed to my room and grabbed my running shoes.
Pound. Pound. Pound.
The road ran into a canyon, my path squeezed between two rocky looming giants. The beast in the sky began to descend, its massive gray coat darkening, becoming looming raven’s wings and dimming the light even more. The giants folded their gray, boulder covered arms and stood to bar my way, laughing along with the noise of my feet hitting the ground and the beast in the sky.
I turned along a dirt trail that ran across one of the giants’ arms. Allied with the invader lurking the heavens, he called for help. A prick on my neck, and the raven-winged beast began assailing me.
The water came down in torrents, hurled at me with no mercy.
I reveled in the assault.
Water streamed down my face, soaked my shirt, my shorts, and my shoes. My whole body began to numb. The trail swerved, shifted, rose, and fell. Loose rocks threatened to trip me, small frowning warriors called to action by the indignant mountain. My eyes were wide, quivering with undivided attention to the attack on my world. My legs pulsed, energy coursed through them.
Furious, the beast hurled a solid bar of light at the ground, his angry animal yell shaking my body with overwhelming ferocity. Undeterred, I pressed on. Flash. Boom.
Hoarse screams pursued me from my house, sending chills up my spine bigger than the ones the beast managed to conjure in me. I crested a hill and stopped, my mind becoming silent as my legs ceased to move. Turning, I faced the valley below the giant I had encroached upon. I gasped.
Thin gray fingers, a shredded curtain, reached down from the beast as it unleashed its fury on the earth. Large flashes illuminated the dim scene, quickly followed by tremendous blasts, a thousand cannons firing in unison. Water poured down as if the Lord Almighty had lent a heavenly fire-hose to this demonic gray beast. The air beneath the turmoil was clear, giving me a razor sharp view for miles. The mountain ridges on the other side of the valley were shimmering knife-edges, each tree clearly outlined and still pointed resolutely at the massive invader overhead, if shaking a bit more than usual. The houses seemed bright and new, as if they had all been called into existence just this morning. The grass was a deep, shimmering viridescence that swayed and flowed in the wind, a stark contrast to the gloom overhead.
The storm rocked the hinges of the world as I knew it.
But I stood.
Wet, shaking, cold. But I stood.
And I was enjoying it.

Laughing, I sprinted down the hill, thumbing my nose at the furious beast hurling
white-hot spears at me. You won’t catch me. Not yet.