You've been running as long as you can remember. Not in the metaphorical sense--none of that emotional cowardice (although there’s been plenty of that, too.) But the more conventional definition. Late night runs, laps on the track, hours on the treadmill on the highest setting you can take. Self-structured marathons that leave your heart stampeding in overdrive up in your throat, legs gelatinous, nose runny, face glowing red hot.
You're running now, weaving through the trees, veered way off a trail in the middle of some national park that Danny loved to visit more than his family. The trail is a sinuous, uneven strip that snakes through the park for miles, but you're not on it. You've only seen the end of it once, for completion's sake; something else has always caught your eye and lured you off the path whenever you take this route.
Four years ago, Danny had started vanishing more than usual. He'd always been flighty, always off hunting for some prime photo location or for the "right spot" to compose another brilliant piece of rhythm and rhyme. Then he somehow had become even more scarce, leaving earlier and coming home later (and sometimes not coming home at all.)
"dudette, you should come with me one of these days," he'd said one evening, on one of the rare occasions he'd been around for dinner at home. "There's this place called The Overlook--it's amazing. You wouldn't believe what I saw--"
"Not interested," you'd told him flatly. A lie. You were so interested you'd have cremated and snorted your own teeth to finally be a part of anything your brother was doing. But it rankled you too hard to be forgotten whenever Danny would lose himself in the moment, which was always; you're still sour from being left behind, always playing second fiddle so Danny could highlight something else, always waiting for him to finish gushing about another rock or tree or random pedestrian that he'd photographed a thousand times before. He never took pictures of you, oddly enough, which made the camera that much more aggravating; but it was his passion, and he was your brother, so you'd learned to tolerate it and turn a blind eye long enough for you to work your way out of the picture entirely.
You'd never been jealous. You were just tired of being neglected. Tired of not existing right in front of Danny's eyes.
What you wouldn't give now for the chance to be ignored one more time.
Your foot snags against some obstinate rock jutting out of the ground and you stumble, catch yourself on a nearby tree, and find your footing again. You're bounding over twigs and stones and clods of earth again, unruly masses of weeds and vines scraping against your legs as you forge a path through the brush.
You've been looking for weeks. The Overlook is supposed to be quite the sight, imposingly grand and mounted high on some prominent bluff, with mesmerizing views of the sunsets over the treetops. By the way Danny wrote about it in his journal, anyone would think it an explorer's wet dream, a fantastical place ready to take your breath away. But you're starting to wonder if The Overlook is a code for something else--a thing of symbolism, maybe--because you've been up and down every trail for over a month now and you still can't find anything that even resembles so much as a hill.
It's ironic, how desperate you've been to find it, now that Danny isn't around to show it off. It makes you clench your jaw and push yourself harder, to run faster, to think of how you'd had your chance and had wasted it. Now you're just trying to make up for lost time, even though you know that you can't; and even if you find this magical cliff, you doubt it'll contribute a lick of anything towards finding some closure. But if you don't try, you'll carry the guilt of being the neglectful one for a change, and you absolutely cannot handle that.
