Running Home

It was a Saturday morning, and I, 7 years old and full of energy, knew what that meant. I slept in until the sun hit my face and woke me from my rest, then bounded out of bed, down the stairs, and into the living room. I grabbed the remote, flipped on the TV, and turned on my cartoons. Since it was a commercial, I ran back to the kitchen, grabbed a bowl, milk, and my chocolaty breakfast cereal, and made my breakfast. Leaving everything a mess there on the kitchen table, I ran back into the living room, sat back down, and started watching, as a rabbit an hunter faced off, or a coyote gave chase to a wily road-runner, and let myself be drawn into the thrill of the chase, enjoying the cartoons.

As I watched, I heard others in the house who I had woken with my running and cartoons. When mom came downstairs, she was unhappy about the mess on the table, and made me stop watching to go clean up. After cleaning up, and watching some more cartoons, it was time to go play outside.

As I got outside, I started to look around. No one was out yet, so it was time to go find someone to play with. I went next door to see if Jesse was up. She was, and she came outside to see what fun mischief we could make today. We ran all over the neighborhood, down the street to where the climbing tree was, chasing each other around the street, up the tree and back down. We went across the street to the row of pines that always had birds nests in them, and looked on the ground for the pretty blue speckled robins eggs. We went down a ways to the weeping willow, with the leaves that hung down to the ground in places, and sat and talked for a while.

We ran and played, sang and joked, chased and chased some more, until at last I heard the call of my mom from the door, and I knew it was time to go home. Off we ran, both to our own comforting homes, where our parents would feed us, and though it was sad to part from my best friend, we did, and we raced each other back home.

As we grew older, we stayed friends, we played together whenever we could, and we always had fun. When she moved away to Europe, her father deployed there with the Navy, it was the saddest day of my childhood. I knew I would miss the fun of running home with her.

I ran into her again a few years ago, after so many years apart. My have the times changed us. She is so different, but still so energetic, like when we were kids. She was the most energetic goth I think I ever ran into. And while in Europe, she got a taste for beer at 14. It hurt me so, to see how much we had both changed, as I had become someone who knew what was right, and tried to live it, she had grown to not care about right and wrong. As I made my efforts to live good, and seek Justice in my life, the injustices in her life had twisted her. Gone was that cheerful child, so full of energy. Now was a teenager, full of energy, but robbed of life.

We talked for a while, spent some time together, but we both knew that what had been a great friendship as children would never come back. And had she not left, maybe it would have ended up differently. Then again, maybe not.

We've lost touch again, and I doubt we'll find each other after this one. I've moved across the country, and the times continue to work in me, making me more of a man of right, of Justice. But who knows what is to come. All I know for sure is that I will forever remember her first as that girl who lived next door, and those memories of running home.