The Reader

She careened through the undergrowth, mud flying as her feet churned the soggy ground. The scent of rain laid heavy on the woods but the air that night was still as the grave, her ragged breathing and pounding feet the only sounds to disturb the silence.

What was she running from?

            She slowed to a trot, fatigue quickly infusing her limbs. Every step slower than the last, her heavy feet clearing the ground by fewer and fewer inches as she continued through the thick underbrush. Thorns caught at the hem of her pants and drug her, thrashing, down into the muck. There she lay as her breath returned and her terror was subsumed by overwhelming exhaustion.

            How did she get here?

She thought and thought but as far in the past as she could remember she had been running, one foot in front of the other with fear and adrenaline pushing her continuously forward. As her breathing slowed the silence grew more invasive, it grew louder and louder until it swelled into a cacophony of silence. Soon it was the only thing she could hear, it was the extent of her aural world. The terror returning she tried scrambling to her feet, yet her weary legs could find no traction in the muck. She lay there in the mud and fallen leaves, hands bleeding from grasping at thorns. She lay there amongst the undergrowth and she wept. The forest had her.

            The ending to this story is oft disputed. Some say the nameless girl died there, but not before being overcome by the terrible silence, but those people are just so depressing. It’s also been told that our damsel in distress was rescued by some strong male archetype, but that ending has fallen from favor these days. There are those, however, who argue that the ending doesn’t matter at all, that the whole story is just a convoluted mess of metaphors and allegories for feminism, society’s silencing of the youth, the sexualsation of pastoral settings or any of the other million things they make you write papers over these days to get your BA. Regardless of how you end the story, they say, you can always be sure that the reader is going to read it through his own lens (did he just use his instead of hers? Sexist) and that all of the meaning and emotion you poured into the story will be understood only to the extent that reader is capable of understanding. The author, as some are wont to say, is dead. Long live the reader.

            How do I like to end the story? Personally I like to end the story right there, the moral is pretty clear to me. Running never ends well.