I hear a voice say, “I see you.”
Immediately, thoughts race through my head like dancers in a recital gone wrong. They are all over and moving quickly, but still unsure of what to do. I decide to give up my hiding place and sprint to safety. I jump out of the bushes as a quickly and abruptly as a jack-in-the-box toy.
A rush of adrenaline flows through my body as I run. I run until my legs feel numb and my heart is beating so fast it feels like a hammer pounding against my ribcage. It bounces around my abdomen like a ball bounces on a trampoline. Up, down, side to side. I hear the yelling behind me. I turn and see him approaching with great speed and velocity. He is gaining on me.
I am no longer conscious of the mechanical movement of my legs trudging along, faster than I have ever run before. To the stop sign, to the end of the road. The street light shines down on the stop sign, as though taunting me with a spotlight of it’s own. There are more coming from the sides of me now. Arms outstretched, reaching for my back. Just trying to grasp my shirt or my hair or anything they can get their hands on. But I am invincible. Just a few more steps until safety. Right now the game is tied and the fate of my team relies on me.
Sure, we take these nightly games of man-hunt very seriously. But it is serious business. To lose is the ultimate fear. So, out we go every single summer evening. Me and my neighbors who live in the small yellow house with the overflowing garden that has great bushes to hide in if you lay down low enough. Todd and Chris from the big, blue Victorian around the corner and little Mae and Oliver from three streets down.
Sweat dribbles down my face like rain on the car window, the kind of rain-drops that young kids like to watch race one another. The black marker on my face, which my parents told me not to put on, is smudged like a spilled can of paint all over the floor. But this is besides the point. Run, run, run.
I feel the cold metal of the stop sign touch my dripping hot palm and the chill of the metal feels like the crisp slap of cold when you step outside from your heated home into a freezing January day. Relief washes over me like the soft waves in the ocean, the kind of waves that are smooth and calming before they turn into a mess of rough, white foam. And I can hear my team cheering for me although it all feels blurred because I am so tired and my legs feel like noodles and my arms feel like lead. But it is so worth it. And the little game of man-hunt on the little street in the little town of Stone Harbor now feels like I won an olympic gold metal with the entire world watching me.
Soon the sun of summer will set and all will go back to the way it goes in the school-year. The purples and oranges of the summer sky will fade into the dark gray of the ashes in the fireplace that you use during the winter. And our tan lines will fade away and we will be left with only the memories and the scars on our knees from tripping and falling on the jagged pavement. We will be okay though, keeping in touch over the months to come and waiting for the yellows and crimsons of the summer sun to rise once again.
Phoebe, I really like you vignette and the use of similes throughout the writing!! It made me feel like a kid again where my biggest worry was a game.
ReplyDeleteI love your use of similes and other literary devices to capture the memory you describe. I really admire seeing the youthful energy that your story contains and how that energy is incorporated in your summer. Great work!
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