In a dark dark wood novel7/7/2023 I knew, as soon as I woke up, that it was a day for a park run, for the longest route I do, nearly nine miles all in all. It’s a woman, speaking clearly and loudly. ‘Leonora, you’re safe, you’re at the hospital. I try to shake my head, my lips won’t form the word. The voice comes dim through a fog of pain. There’s a stench of blood in my nostrils, my hands are sticky with it. The light in my eyes, the pain in my head. I fling myself onto the tarmac, my arms outstretched. I force myself down the last thirty metres, tripping over fallen logs, my heart like a drum in my breast.Īnd I’m too late – the car is too close, I can’t stop it. I must get to the road before-Īnd then there it is, a black snake of tarmac in the moonlight, and I can hear the roar of an engine coming, and the white lines shine so bright they hurt my eyes, the black tree trunks like slashes against the light. The time I want to get, or the frustrations I’m pounding away against the tarmac.īut this time one word, one thought, pounds inside me. I can do this.Īlways when I run there’s a mantra inside my head. I am running through moonlit woods, with branches tearing at my clothes and my feet catching in the snow-bowed bracken.īrambles slash at my hands.
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