Take Me Away

Scratches and bruises lay littered cross tender skin like a forgotten canvas that had seen too much. So she lay on the tarmac in the night time and watched the planes overtake her existence and dreamed of getting away.

It’s not that she was in an abusive relationship, not at all. Well, if you didn’t count the parents who yelled too much. At her. At each other. At themselves. She just trained in a combat sport. And had a cat who didn’t know how to retract it’s claws back properly. Again, nothing abusive, just uncomfortable.

But people always looked. Always gave her eyes filled with worry or pity. Not for the right reason obviously. But how would they know? It’s not like they ever asked. People have a hard time asking difficult questions. Maybe if they don’t ask, they can’t get a terrible answer. That way they can stay supportive, but from a distance. All the “I hope you’re okay” and “I’m always here if you need to talk to someone”.

It’s not that she didn’t need to talk to someone, it’s just she felt her problems were so misplaced that once people found out she wasn’t actually being neglected, that they wouldn’t take the other stuff seriously. People tended to need a big bang to care.

So she focused on her sport. Figured if she could train hard enough, get discovered, then she could take off from her small town where nothing but side-eyed judgement happened. But sometimes bad days just happened. And when they did, she’d bike out all the way to the airport (told herself it was good cardio) and snuck through the gate towards the tarmac. No one really cared.

As she lay there by the cargo storage units, she’d let her imagination take off with the planes above and pictured herself in Paris, Budapest, Istanbul. She’d imagine herself one day just saying “fuck it!” and going. Middle finger to the world. And after an hour or two, she’d sneak back out through the gap in the gate towards her bike. She’d hop on and start the long ride home, while part of her stayed back at the airport.

“One day I’ll be on one of those planes, I swear. One day I’ll make it the fuck outta here. One day I’ll leave it all behind.”

And one day she really did leave it all behind. But not in the way everyone had expected. She did make the news that one evening, but not as everyone would have hoped.

One night she left too much of herself at the airport and didn’t pay attention to the road. All it took was one night, one second, and she was gone.

----------------------------------------------

This story was original published on my Medium account here. The prompt word was 'planes' with a strict word count of 454 words.

I've been very active over there on Medium and have recently co-started a publication that has daily words, wacky word counts, and crazy ass stories.

If you're on Medium and want to join, check it out below.