Across the Universe - Beth Revis [65]
The day is only a few minutes old. Without a proper sunrise, it doesn’t feel like early morning, just regular daylight, the same it will be at noon or a few minutes before dark. Still, even though it looks like nearly the entire level is sleeping, I stick to the rural areas, jogging past the cows and through the rows of corn with tassels that tickle me as I brush by. After ten minutes or so, I pick up the pace, willing my body to enter the zone.
“Why do you like to run, Red?” Jason asked me after our third or so date, after we had started kissing, but before I’d worked up the courage to tell him I despised the nickname “Red.”
“I told you. I love that moment when you get totally focused on running, when all you are is pounding feet.”
Harder. I have to run harder.
“I guess I can get that.” Jason leaned in for a kiss, but I was already focused on tying my shoestrings, and all he got was a cheek.
I looked up at him. “And I want to win.”
“Win?”
I can outrun these memories. I just have to go faster. The cornfield stops against a low fence. Sheep stare at me from the other side. I skid in my turn, racing along the fence.
“Yeah. Win the New York City Marathon. It’s kind of my dream.” I was avoiding his eyes now not because I was focused on adjusting my socks, but because I’d never told anyone about this before.
“The New York City Marathon?”
“Yeah. It’s a big deal. One of the best marathons in the world. Over twenty-six miles, through all the boroughs. But to run it—I mean really run it, not just show up and get to the end—well, you have to be good.”
“How good?”
“The best time is like in two and a half hours.”
“Two and a half hours? For twenty-six freaking miles? Dude!”
“I know. I’m nowhere near that. But...” I glanced up at him now. He wasn’t joking, like usual; he was taking me completely seriously.
“You can do it.”
“I can barely do ten miles in two hours.”
“You can do it. For real. You never give up. I’ve watched you. One day, you’re going to win that marathon, and I’ll be at the finish line, waiting for you. With a surprise.” He grinned now, mischievous again.
“Lemme guess,” I said. “Is the surprise this?” And I kissed him, pressing all the love I had for him and his faith in me from my lips to his.
I stop when it hits me, gulping at air that tastes like ozone.
It’s not just that there is no Jason. There is no marathon. There is no New York. New York—New York! It’s huge. There are—there were so many people there. No New York. Whatever New York exists now, it’s not the way it was. It’s not subways and Central Park, marathons and Broadway. By now it’s something else entirely—flying cars and teleporters for all I know. I’ll never see it, and it will never be what it was. For me, forever, there is no New York.
But, my heart whispers, there is Elder.
I run harder.
When I start seeing people outside, awake and beginning their days, I turn back to the Hospital.
I can’t lie to myself.
I know I want to hide.
I slow down when I see the cows up close.
They’re not normal cows.
I haven’t, you know, grown up on a farm or anything, but still, I know what a cow is supposed to look like. And these cows—well, clearly they’re supposed to be cows, but I’ve never seen any cow like these before.
For one thing, they’re shorter. A lot shorter. Their heads barely reach my shoulder. The males have horns like cows are supposed to have horns, but they’re mushroom shaped and blunted, not because they’ve been cut off, but because they’ve grown that way.
They seem as curious about me as I am about them. I stop at the fence and lean over it, panting and sweaty, and a few of the cows wobble in my direction. They have more muscle on them than normal cows, meat bulging under their hides, making them bowlegged and slow. They chew on cud in even, measured movements,