The roles quickly line up, as expected. Here are the stoics, here the soft hearts. All armed with whatever knowledge we think will help. I went for a run along the river, you know how it clears my veins, slow methodic steps according to known routes. Underneath the Manhattan bridge I ran through a group of kids. One mississippi. Two mississippi. A shot rings out behind me. Is this what gunshots sound like? I have time to think before the teenagers swarm behind me to escape. Another shot. I cut across the basketball courts, try to see if anyone is following. The kids disperse. Another shot, a young man with a gun silhouetted against the East River. I suppose I should cross the street, floats past my temples as the voice in my headphones says I'm halfway there with an encouraging tone. I run back, at the edge of a gunfight, skirting the edge of something from which you cannot come back. Well it's been a day, I say later when she asks, but I leave it at that. Life is so brief, so impossibly, painfully brief. Let's not have it be over yet.
I put one foot in front of the other, cover the miles.
The only way out is through.
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