Run
an excerpt

In the morning, we come back. I am filled with food, and warmth, eyes dancing with neon lights again. I am returned to the status of human being, recharged by society.
We stand and wait by the pier. Jonatan seems pensive, so I hit him, which seems to help. We watch together as the old sea monster sails out. I'm fascinated by him, and his silence. You can tell that he'd be silent even if we spoke the same language, completely laconic. Probably trying to be mysterious. Probably trying to cultivate the image of a hardy old sea dog, someone to be respected, just because they don't say anything.
Then I think, maybe he talks to the sea. Maybe the sea is his friend and companion, and out their on the water, when not troubled by flighty westerners or mad ghosts, he talks softly to it, tells it about his hopes and dreams, his fears. Maybe he's been at sea all his life, and everyone he's ever known or loved has been taken by it, one by one. Maybe he asks it how they're doing, sends them love, reads them poems, and whispers that one day he'll be down there with them, at the end, down in the depths at the ocean floor.
Or maybe he's just an old bastard. Who knows? I fold him up neatly and tuck him away in a corner of my mind, for later use. I will immortalise you, sir, and you won't know it, but the world will remember you. Future mad old sea captains will have an archetype to study, a role model, nay, a hero! You will live on in infamy, my dear. (And how original. Nobody's ever done a mad old sea captain story – right?)
An hour later, the boat appears again in the distance. There are two figures on board – the old monster, guiding them home, and a lady. I can see punky red hair, glinting eyes, a wicked grin, even from here. And the mad old ghost remains on the island, where he belongs.
I don't know what I was hoping to find. Direction, I suppose. But you can't expect the world to give you that. You can't reshape the world – it's the way it is, and you just have to deal with it. Doesn't mean you can't have a little fun with it, though.
Josie stands and waves at us as we come into view. Jonatan waves back, and so do I, sacrificing my stoic detachment – briefly. She looks happy, not just in her smile, but in her whole person, like the missing bits have been put back in. She glows like the sun. It's wonderful.
Jonatan retrieves a video-phone from somewhere about his person, and stands filming her as she approaches the shore. He narrates, ridiculously, joy-driven nonsense and hyperbole, like a sports fan filled with sugar.
That's his thing. This is mine. I take out my notebook and begin to write, carefully at first, then furiously, the words dancing onto the page, a stream of pure thought unfettered by sense, rhyme or reason. I write about what I know, about life, my life, not some idea of life, not a parody – not anymore. I write about inspiration, and adventure, and little mice and what they can do. I write about teachers who don't know when to stop.
And why stop? Run instead, when everything's in front of you, when the world is waiting. It's not like it's going to come to you. Run and keep running, until you reach the ends of the earth, until all the world's oceans fall away and you're left staring into space, and then look at the stars and know that they're waiting for you too, all the way out there, and know that they're not twinkling but burning, a billion miles away, with all the fire there's ever been. Take that fire into your heart, take a deep breath, and run out into the black to meet them.