False Dawn

No Escaping

Chapter 3 – Harper – No Escaping

 It was just before sunrise when I woke from a troubled sleep. As usual, I was curled up in a tight ball against the van’s rear window. Despite the cold I could feel seeping in through the glass, I was warm and comfortable under my blankets. I dreaded the thought of leaving my comfortable nest, but the remnants of the dream I couldn’t remember, and the beginnings of the terrible cloud of memories that loomed over me whenever I stopped moving for too long, chased me out of bed.

Shivering ridiculously in the early morning I gathered my clothes together to get dressed. I was having a little difficulty adjusting to the cold Northern American weather. Sure it sometimes felt below 0 Celsius in Queensland, in the hours before dawn in the dead of winter, but here it was already colder than the coldest winter months back home, and it was only October!

Dressed in long woollen leggings, green fisherman pants, a tank top, a long sleeved black top, a cardigan and a black hoodie, I began to feel brave enough to face the early morning. I considered making a pot of tea, but decided I wanted to go for a run first. My dad had always been at me to take better care of my body. Now that they weren’t here to give it, I found myself, almost guiltily, taking all of my parents’ unwanted advice. I grabbed my running shoes from the storage space under the bed, and my iPod from the shelf above it. Bracing myself against the cold, I slid open the side door, and slammed it behind me. Hopping from foot to foot to try and keep warm, I quickly put my ear buds in and turned my iPod to random.

As the opening chords to Sax Rohmer #1, by the Mountain Goats started, I began to jog slowly down the beach.  When my breath began to even out into regular clouds of mist I picked up the pace, treading lightly on the pebbly beach. I weaved between driftwood trees, allowed myself to sprint a little on the clear stretches of open beach. Somehow running seemed to clear a space in my mind. This small daily ritual was the only time I allowed myself to think of home, to think of my parents.

My mum, with her red hair, heavily accented with gray, the conversations we used to have in the car. She was the person I was most able to confide in, and the strongest, kindest person I had ever known. My dad, so similar to me in so many ways, yet the one person in the world who I was certain I would never understand. We would fight and fight as if we hated each other, but there was always an agreement that, at the end of the day, we would still love one another. The love my the two of them shared held me in awe, after twenty five years of marriage they would still hold hands and cuddle. Sometimes, when my dad looked at my mum I could see the look of awed disbelief on his face, even after all their years together he could still look at her like he had when they first met and fell in love.

As I ran I could relive how it felt to be a part of that love. It had been the foundation upon which my life was built. They were the source of every part of me that I was proud to have. This was how I remembered them. This hour a day was the only way I could keep them alive. This was why I ran, and this was why I couldn’t stop, because if the reality of their deaths ever caught up with me I was certain that everything I was would crumble and collapse.

My heart began to race in response to my dark thought, and I put on another burst of speed, pushing the thoughts away. I had reached the end of the beach, and I realised that this particular spot was hidden from both the town and parking lot by a small outcropping of trees. Feeling impulsive and a little bit reckless, I slowed to a stop, and stripped down to my tank top and underwear, and then, before I could talk myself out of it, I bolted into the ocean. I gasped at the cold as a wave crashed against my hips, steeling myself I dove under the next one. For a blissful moment, I knew nothing except the oblivion of iciness, that feeling that’s somewhere between cold and burning, between painful and thrilling. Then I surfaced, gasping for breath. I swam out in the swell until my legs began to feel rather numb.