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Order this writing in the collection book Layers of Creation available for only 1795 |
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This appears in a pre-2010 issue
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A Girl Running
Kate LaDew
It was louder than he expected and Elijah sat up straight, a crease of surprise over his eyes. A little girl killed in a roadside bombing and the news was manic with victory. Video fuzzy and shaking with tiny earthquakes, exclusives declared and red bars warning sensitive viewers to turn away. It was a stamp flashing watch watch, and Elijah watched, space between his back and the sofa. The little girl ran, black hair a slab of negative against the white of concrete until a powder of light made the screen blank. The camera dipped once, twice, refocusing and blurring, a landscape with nothing but white. Elijah looked for the negative, the slab of black. The TV told him to watch closely, and it came again, again. Elijah waited for more, for a resolution. And what next? What happened after? The girl was dead and it seemed enough for the TV as it zagged graphics, ripping them across the screen and ricocheting into steadier pictures.
Elijah was holding his breath. He exhaled, confusion tapping. Expectant. Anxious. What was missing? He concentrated. Concentrated on keeping still, remembering everything he felt. What he felt. He was still waiting. Sadness had a timeline and Elijah was waiting. He went through a checklist of tragedy. A little girl. She had been afraid. There was helplessness in her limbs, a taughtness not made for children. Rocks pelting her and she died with a suddenness only seen in movies. It was a little girl and she was dead and Elijah waited. The waiting shocked him, lack of response a grief in itself, startling shame and repulsion, a feeling remembered when the cause was forgotten. Elijah wanted racking sobs to double him over, to burn behind his eyes and claw at his throat. He wanted pity and horror. And outrage and.
Every element was in place and Elijah knew he would not cry. It was all there, and it had been before, and before that, and before that. Dead little girls, polaroids stacked in piles, no identifiers, no letters scrawled in black, nothing to distinguish one from another. Dead little girls with smiles and white teeth. Elijah caught a spark of red across the TV. He watched the little girl silently and felt a compulsion to warn her, the predetermined flash right on time. A dead little girl, running, fear visible on her skin. Elijah blinked once, twice, closed his eyes without opening them again. The yellow on red image of the TV faded behind his lids and his ears picked up the slack. Replayed in fifteen minutes, the top of the hour, played in intervals, high definition if anyone forgot what a dead little girl looked like. Until tomorrow. Replacements. So many, he thought crudely, they must be running out. What will they do when they run out?
Black, a flash. Black, a flash. Elijah watched it in his head. What he was missing. He would hold. Hold on to this feeling, this lack of feeling and keep it close, punish his chest ‘til it drained tears. He would remember. He would remember, memorize, trace the pattern of shapes that formed a face. He would wait. Not forget the little girl, the little girl with hair thick as rope, teeth for smiling, adult legs running and running. Elijah told himself with violent words, hating himself for knowing they would not come true. The moment would not be remembered. It would fill up the space outside him where things vanished, never existing at all. He would wait and it would be tomorrow and again and again, only a twinge of guilt left he could not place, a tickle of sadness earned and unused, writhing at the tips of his fingers, untouched. Elijah knew this with a certainty that exhausted him. He wanted something. Did the wanting forgive him? Did the knowing forgive him the neglect of empathy? He would believe it, true or not, Elijah decided he would believe it until tomorrow, believe it as long as it mattered.
Elijah wondered how much he had forgotten. He wondered just how sanctimonious he would allow himself to be. A stranger in a strange land, the only one who resolved to question. A moment of worry and a lifetime of complacency. Top stories changed every 24 hours. Dead little girls, enough for every station, enough to fill a day.
Elijah was tired. Had no right to be. Made a decision not to care. He wanted. He wanted at least and it was enough. He kept his eyes closed until he was asleep and tiny blurs of black hair skipped across his vision, alive and thick as rope, a whiplash tripping him until he doubled over, until an ocean rose up and he watched through blue water, a girl running.
