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Count me in. Could I have an addiction please?
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Dec 28, 2019 00:25
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 19:27 |
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Chili posted:Addiction to exercise. The Plastic Spinner 1040 words She dreams of running away, while I dream only of running around. As soon as I wake, I hurry to the plastic spinner and run for as long as I can. I run until my muscles ache, until my lungs are fit to burst. It is familiar. Safe. Even the incessant squeaking is a comfort. “I reckon I could outrun him,” my sister says. She has her face pressed up against the bars. I pause for a second to catch my breath. The spinner rocks me a couple of times, then stills. She is talking about the Claw. It watches from the other side of the bars, its eyes glinting green in the dark. I don't answer. We've had this conversation before. We were born behind glass. My sister and I, and our other sisters and brothers would huddle together for some sense of protection from the parade of giant staring eyes and tapping fingers. Now we are somewhere else, in this barred prison. All four sides are exposed to the outside, and the Claw. But just as the bars are too narrow for us to get out, they are also too narrow for the Claw to get in. I stand up again and start to run again. Faster now. The plastic squeaks and rattles against the bars. “Huh, I'll go on my own then,” my sister says. There is a distant rumble. Coming closer. There are two other giants in this new place. I fear they do not mean us well. With a click the darkness is gone. “Would you shut that loving thing up?” one shouts. I have no idea what it means. “It's a hamster! What do you expect it to do?” the other yells. Utter nonsense. “I can't stand it any more!” The impact comes out of nowhere and my whole world is thrown onto its side. I'm thrown to one side in the plastic spinner, nuts and grains raining down on me. I am still for a moment, waiting. The giants continue to make noise towards each other. The dark is back. The noise retreats. I feel my sister's whiskers on my face. “You all right?” she asks. “Yeah,” I say. Taking a breath, I prepare to start running again. But the spinner won't spin. I turn around and try to run the other way. “I can't run,” I gasp. “Forget about that. Look! This is our chance!” The door, which is now on the wall instead of the ceiling, hangs open. My sister has climbed up to it. She is looking back at me. “Come on!” she urges. I climb out of the spinner and push it with my nose. It turns, but not like it once did. “Let me have one more run, and I'll join you,” I say. I push the spinner again. My sister is out of the door and runs across the patterned ground outside. I continue pushing the spinner, kidding myself that it is gathering momentum. There is a terrible scream. I look up. Outside, the Claw has descended upon my sister. I am frozen. My heart pounds. My first thought it to turn away and run in the spinner. But I cannot. It no longer turns as it did before. I stare at my motionless sister. Eventually, the Claw leaves her. I am shaking, but I force my body to move to the door. I drop down onto the odd, patterned ground outside. It is softer than the wood chippings that carpet the prison. I hurry over to my sister, calling out to her. She does not respond. I push her with my nose. She does not push back. I lay my head on hers. She is warm, but somehow more solid than before. I realise I can't feel the familiar judder of her heartbeat. She had no plan for this. We would escape, and she would lead the way. I'm not supposed to be on my own. Without my sister, there is nobody in this world on my side. Except for – no, I remind myself, the spinner is not anybody. I look back at the prison, its door hanging open. It looks smaller from the outside. The extreme largeness of the outside hits me. I feel so very small. So very alone. The spinner is dead. My sister is dead. “Go on without me,” I imagine she says to me. But where? Where do I go? I do what comes naturally to me. I run. It feels strange, running on this patterned ground. Running away, not just around. There is an opening ahead of me, just tall enough to squeeze my body into. My nose twitches involuntarily, snuffling as dust fills my nostrils. I find something that smells like food. I crunch it down. It is unlike anything I have ever eaten before. I find myself looking back to the prison. Its familiarity. The spinner. Without a second thought, I am have left the low opening and I'm scampering back the way I came. I stop to sniff at my motionless sister. I catch a motion from the corner of my eye. The Claw narrowly misses me. I dive back through the open door of the prison and curl up inside the spinner. The Claw follows, but only its paw can fit through the door. It cannot reach me. I am safe. Eventually my racing heart slows and I fall into a troubled sleep. I am awoken by the world tilting again, less violently this time. I am sitting in the spinner right way up again. It rocks me back and forth as if to comfort me. I watch the giant close the door in the ceiling, and my escape route is gone. I climb out of the spinner and press my nose to the bars. The giant goes over to my dead sister. Lifts her. Takes her away. I climb back into the spinner. I begin to run, slowly at first, testing it. The spinner is working. Relief floods my body. The spinner is alive. I will never again think of running away. I am perfectly satisfied with running around.
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Dec 29, 2019 21:04
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