Runners

Runners:

The runners sprouted up when I was eleven. First one came out on the inside of my right wrist. A couple days later one burst through the skin on the nape of my neck. Then, in quick succession, two of them broke out within hours of one another, one on each of my hips.

They developed in a matter of weeks, and except for the fact that they were no larger than a maple leaf, the runners physically resembled me in every way. Each of them had red curly hair, green eyes, and thick pouty lips. Each even possessed the purple birthmark that blemishes my right shoulder. Initially they lacked individual personalities. When I was sad, the runners were also sad. If I was in a good mood, the same emotion filled their faces.

But over time they became their own entities, parasitic and dependent perhaps, but still their own persons. We became best friends, the runners and I. We often competed in board games, sat on the sofa watching television, or read novels together in the comfort of our bed.

At school and other public places, I learned to hide them by wearing bulky button-up shirts, of which I kept the sleeves tugged to the center of my palms and always wore the collar up. For a long time nobody noticed that I had four miniature clones of myself dangling from various parts of my body.

Then one day, Charlie Benzinger, a boy known for having a cruel streak, saw me in the corridor and said, “Hey, Moron. Why you always walking around with the cuffs of your sleeves in your hands?”

I tried to ignore Charlie, tried to hurry past him, but he reached out and took a handful of my right shirtsleeve from behind. I went one way, he tugged the other. Neither of us slacked until the shirt tore.

Charlie‘s eyes grew big. “Holy crap,” he said, letting the material he was holding drop to the tiled floor. “What the fuck you got growing on you, Moron?” I tried to adjust my shirt to hide the exposed runner on my wrist. But it was too late. A small silent crowd had started to gather and Charlie, who was still shaking his head, said, “I always knew you were a freak.”

I didn’t say anything, just stared at my sneakers. Both of the runners on my hips and the one on the back of my neck kept perfectly motionless under the fabric of my shirt. The one on my wrist, however, having been exposed, stretched the rubbery connective membrane as far as he could and tried to hide in my palm.

Charlie took a couple steps toward me. Although I wanted to bolt, my legs refused to cooperate. Sensing my fear, the runner on my palm began to cry. I closed my hand. Charlie reached out and used his big fingers to pry open my smaller ones. The runner crouched. Charlie snatched it, wrapping his fingers around him like he was a rolling pin. Then Charlie yanked, hard. The tiny runner screamed. I felt a burning sensation erupt from my palm as Charlie pulled once more and ripped the runner free.

Charlie held the struggling runner up. He slowly turned around and showed the gasping crowd, which had by this time swelled in number. “Look,” Charlie said, “It’s a miniature moron.” Nobody laughed. Everyone remained silent. Then the runner, blood pouring from the hollow of his back where the membrane had been torn, leaned forward and clamped into one of Charlie’s fingers with his tiny teeth.

Charlie screamed, opening his hand. “God damn moron!“ he shouted. The runner hopped out of Charlie’s hand and with his arms held out at his sides, floated to the floor like a propeller pod. Then, searching for safety, he began to race toward me. But in an instant Charlie’s foot came down on top of it. I turned my head as the brittle bones crunched.

I felt my lips tremble. I lowered my head and ran at Charlie, ramming the top of my skull into his midsection, knocking him to the ground. I stomped at his teeth. Through tears, I could see blood spill from his mouth. I dropped to my knees and pummeled him with both fists. One of the teachers had come out of her classroom. She pushed through the crowd and grabbed me beneath the arms, pulling me off of Charlie and slamming me against the lockers. Other teacher’s appeared, quickly bringing order to the crowded corridor. When I looked down and saw him, the runner Charlie had stomped, squirming on the tiles; broken and still trying still to make his way over to me, I pushed myself off the lockers, closed my eyes and stomped him myself.

That was the last day I attended Sunnybrook Middle School. When my father came and picked me up from the principal’s office, he showed no signs of being angry. In the car he said, “Why didn’t you tell me you had runners?”

“I thought you’d think I was weird,” I replied.

“Why would you think that?”

I shrugged and looked out the window, saw my reflection and thought about the runner that now lay dead in a cigar box in the Science room.

At home, I locked myself in the bathroom and although I cried through the whole procedure, I decided I had to get rid of them. After reaching behind my head and pulling on the one at the back of my neck, I decided to stuff cotton in my ears so I wouldn’t have to hear them scream. When I felt the skin beneath it give way, I closed my eyes, dropped it into the toilet and flushed, keeping my eyes shut until the roar of the toilet had subsided.

Then I did the same with the ones on my hips.

Later, at the dinner table, my father told me that I was in fact a runner myself, pulled from his left ankle when he was nine and nurtured in pristine soil for several months before developing a personality of my own.

I thought he was lying. Then he unbuttoned his shirt and slipped it over his right shoulder, revealing a purple birthmark identical to mine. He buttoned back up and asked, “Did you ever wonder why you didn’t have a mother?”

When I told him what I’d done in the bathroom, my father was disappointed but not angry. He rolled up his left shirtsleeve to the elbow and showed me two raised rosette scars. He explained that my gaping wounds would smooth out in a few weeks to remind me that my runners had been real.

It happened exactly as my father said it would. A few weeks later the wounds scarred over. I mourned for months afterward, missing them dearly.

I am sixteen now, and last night a tiny red bump appeared on the meaty flesh of my left thigh. Lying in bed I feel the slightest movement beneath the bump.

I’m not quite sure how I should react.