This is my first try at symbolism... It's long and I'm up for any changes you suggest. Try to read between the lines and tell me if you get it! Thanks!
There is a crowd. I stand amongst the rabble with my eyes shaded in a cloud of hair and the backs of heads. Nerves fill the troposphere with a heated steam that keeps feet tingling and fingers clenched. I can sense the tension, but I don’t feel it. There’s a taste of blood and lies in my spit, but I’m still numbed.
An invisible authority raises a gun into the air and pulls the trigger. The forever-echoing boom hits me as if it had been the bullet and I had been the target. And as the muster disperses in a frantic run, both messy and somehow rehearsed, my feet stand still. Seconds pass but I’m already too far behind. They’re going to win the race and I’m never going to move. And as I wait, I can’t help but remember.
They gave us shoes. White, plain shoes with tags reading ‘one size fits all’. Then we tied them. Knots and bows. They felt so big back then.
Like animals kept on a leash, they kept us tame with a choking collar and a whip hidden under their sleeves. Our cage was a trail, short, narrow, and nearly set in a perfect straight line. The tar, a smooth coating of hard cement that they said would keep the rocks and roots from tripping us, flattened our feet and scraped our knees. We were in training and our minds were too fresh to smell the rot. The tar was always wet, though the sun always seemed to shine. Barely were there ever clouds when the children were present.
The smiles on the faces of those who told us when to go and when to stop seemed painted on. A plastic molding which stuck them with that single emotion. Fake grins and blood shot eyes persuading us into believing that the only right way was their way. So we’d nod our heads as they washed our brains with muddy water. And from dusk to dawn we’d work long and hard, our legs pounding down the same road without leaving a single crack. But the blood from the cuts never fully languished no matter how much rain had poured after all the students had left.
Our next trail came with less tar and more curves. The length mixed with the new terrain knocks the breath out of our lungs. They told us we were ready so why is it still so hard?
They talk more, now. Our practices adopt encouraging speeches that always stick to our brains, the peanut butter at the roves of our hungry mouths. We feast off of their lies, too naive because it’s lunch time.
‘Trust us’ is plastered across their shirts. Their words seem so strong and real. The promising eyes that always look through actually start to make contact, burning our chests with a blood-red ‘Trust them’. They hold our hands too tight but save us from getting lost. When we fall they help us up. Now our wrists are marked and our fingers bruised, but at least we’re back on our feet.
The sun struggles to reach us through the dark evergreens that fill our sky. There’s no such thing as blue. Our messy trail wears footprints of the same shoe. All of the tracks exact, a collage of children’s prints that look like one though we’re all a different size.
I ask them why and they grunt. Their answer to me is an unhappy look and a “If you don’t know then you’re too young to understand.”
But suddenly we’re not young. The dirt road we run on becomes unbearably simple and our feet grow bored of the repetition. We listen less to what they tell us and focus more on the yellow light hiding behind the needles and leaves. They call us ungrateful and we don’t hear them. For a brief moment, our eyes were open.
Without a break they send us off to another place. Our comfort zone is ripped away from us and suddenly we’re exposed to a whole new form of pain and discomfort. We’re not with the same teachers anymore. Now we listen to tailored suits and firm voices. And someone must have forgotten to paint on their smiles.
For the first time, we see the rain. They carry umbrellas over their heads and watch us run, telling us as we complain that it’s only a bit of water.
Goosebumps and chattering teeth echo in the forest that surrounds our muddy path. We run together, unable to see the end of the new road. But even if we had double the amount of students we would have all felt just as alone when we came to the hill.
The large incline jetting out from the ground seemed like a wall too high to climb over. Steep and slippery, even the dirt and rocks had a hard time staying on it. Our eyes would watch the bits of earth roll down the gigantic mountain, and with that our eyes were shut again.
Legs pounded up the monster but slipped back down without making it even half way. Knees buckled and ankles twisted and every person who attempted to make it would fail. The clean shoes became dark with soil. Blood stained our shirts and pain stained our faces. I watched with horror as my peers fell one after the other, each one making the same mistake.
Hands push my shoulders forward and a voice tells me it’s my turn. I’ve already seen my fate and before I can say no my feet are touching the edge of the death-trap.
So I decide to walk around the mountain.
I reach the edge and can see the light on the other side. With a smile, I step into the unkempt brush and begin to walk.
But they pull me back inside of the box and frown at me like I had done something wrong. Their black eyes stare into mine and their voices growl, “This is the wrong way.” So like all of those who were defeated before me, I am forced to climb up the hill only to fall back down.
Strength builds within us, our will-power to please and advanced to their next level greater than the height of the mountain. Together we work, a unit of one made up of hundreds, only as strong as our weakest climber. With hands gripped together tightly and feet buried deep into the mud, those who drag us down are carried by the steady. No one makes it over until everyone has made it to the top.
We see many suns followed by many moons before our eyes lay upon the declining slope on the other side. Our over-worked muscles stumble down the hill that no longer feels so tall. Gravity pulls us to the bottom and our chapped lips kiss the flat ground, true happiness gleaming with triumph. Finally I feel like I understand the pain. But then I see their feet. The shoes upon our feet are dressed in soil so deep and black, our legs dirty with mud and our palms sullied. But their feet are bear amd clean, spotless and shining like the clearest glass. And on the side of the mountain hidden behind an array of leaves is the trail that they said I was not allowed to take, their feet pressed evenly into the comforting dirt.
Victory is a sweet liquid that they snatch right out of our hands when they tell us we have more to run. Our final race that they’ve trained us to take. Like dogs, they walk us to the last trail with collars choking our necks. But our bones still hurt and our breath is still heavy. Beads of sweat drip slowly from our aching heads and bruised palms, falling to the dirt with painful and defeated drips.
The crowd is busy and filled with intensity that can’t reach me. Their nerves are anxious but I feel no stress. Then the gun is fired and all the legs around me start to run, but mine stay still. As those I’ve been following get farther ahead in the race, their shoes cutting off their circulation and thinning into just another layer of skin, I am unable to move.
I watch them go, my friends trekking upon a trail without an end, a repetitive circle that will bring them back to the beginning. They can’t hear anymore. Their eyes are blinded by the pride of finishing first in a race that has no finish line. They’ve been taught but the true lessons have drifted in one ear and out the other. The trail is a track, round and endless. But they’re unable to see that the scenery is all the same.
I kneel to the ground and slowly untie my beaten down shoes. What was once bright and pure white has turned into a black emptier than evil’s eyes. The mud peels off of the laces as I work my fingers to unknot what has captured me my entire life. Suddenly my feet are exposed to a whole new awareness, the skin like a new born child feeling for the first time. The soft ground, the fresh air, the cool dew upon the earth’s surface, all of it is soaked in without the shield that has acted as a fake protection. I look to those who have trained me, expecting to see the defeat in their eyes.
The paint upon their faces crack and chips fall upon the grass. True smiles stretch across the faces of those who never had been smiling even before. I see their eyes, not angry but strained. A soft hand unlatches my leash and I ask, “Where do I go now?”
“Wherever you want,” they say, “You’ve always had the choice to take off your collar and go wherever you want.”
Seasons change and now I’m standing once again upon a crowd filled with anxious nerves and high tension. The strain in the air is thick as sweat drips from their aching bodies. I am back the beginning. I am standing behind those heads and throbbing legs with a face still and emotionless. With the choice to stay where I had finished, this is where I decided to go.
That fear still can’t break me as I observe. I’ve been here once as they all are now, thinking hopefully the same things. That gun is raised into the air and I take my position, listening to the bullet break the sky once it is fired. I shut my eyes, the sound of feet pounding the earth denting the face I’ve kept so well. I only open them when the vibrations of the runners have distanced themselves too far down the track for me to pick up. Then I am allowed to smile.
Shaking hands place what had once been white shoes in the spot where mine had been. A vulnerable voice asks the question that had fallen from my own lips when I had been faced with the same decisions. But now, I am the one who gets to answer. I am the one who opens the door and says, “Go wherever you want and maybe even help change the world.”
