The Escape

It was over.

The running, the terror. He'd never run so fast than when those memories were at his heels. His father's eyes. His father's hands. His father's reach. He'd been held so fast and so safe for so long that he'd wondered if his legs would fly if he were given the chance.

The third row of fresh scars upon his back taught him the truth, and gave him all the speed he needed.

He'd walked streets and slept in gutters. He'd found the life in parks to be different from the life on roadsides. He found the deeper forests and the silent songs of deep ravines. He walked with his back laid bare among the muck, the trash, the rain, and the burning sun. He walked until he hungered, till he starved, till he thirsted. His only direction – away. Away from the cultured wilderness of home, from the pavement that chased him with police cars and posters.

Away.

When he collapsed, he collapsed into a running creek. The smooth rocks cut his belly, his chest, his face. The water flowed around and through him, licking at his wounds, stealing away his breath. In his mind, he was rushing down that river.

He followed its course through old, rusty pipes, held in place by cement, a testament against the endless floodwaters that would rise again like the sun, long past when men could hold them. He flowed on past the barriers, down a rushing dam like a diver. He crashed into a thousand pieces and his shards joined the great Mississippi, slow and wild and thick. He was drunk on the history of it, man and path, and the path grew older still than man's touch. He did a little dance as he waved by New Orleans. (The floodwaters howled and sang, for they were ready for another drink.) He fell into the ocean.

He found a merlin there, wild and strong. It tore a fisher from his boat, tore the hook from its bloody lip, and his own bloody kiss found a comfortable brother. They swam hard and deep, hunting and eating and living and fighting. He was alive, with a fire in his spine and a weapon down the line of his eyes. He was whole.

He woke up in that empty little creek and his blood tasted strong with mercury. He stood up, unhungry. Unstarving. Unthirsting.

He starting walking. South.