Can I Escape Ordinary?

• Luisa Jadulco, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2019

'Crunch. Thump. Crunch. Thump.' I had it memorised already - the rhythm of footsteps on each patch of gravel, along with the steady emptiness in all of their eyes, which gazed straight ahead into nothingness. This hollow feeling which weighed about a hundred pounds on the back of my mind like an invisible anchor, pulled me down with every breath I took. Everything went by in slow motion. There was always something missing, but every time I was closer to grasping it, the further it would slip away and plummet down into a never-ending hole.
I breathed in the brisk, chilly air to let my mind run loose. I would conjure up the most thrilling inventions that even pondering for a brief moment was considered frightful and appalling to society. They found it daunting and unnatural to create something out of the ordinary. Everything was just a dull, unmoving, continuous routine that seemed to cycle on for forever. But not today. I was done with this. I jogged to the top of the village’s hill and dragged something from behind me upwards the slope. Holding my breath, I hopped inside my invention and counted down. “One… two… three!” A solid kick was all it took to watch the whole world tip away. I felt myself hover inches above the ground, almost as if I could reach the sky with the tips of my fingers, before chaotically barrelling down the hill in a whirlwind of speed. The feeling was indescribable. My shrieks were drowned out by the whipping lashes of wind as my vision grew blurry and my cheeks burnt hot with overwhelming jubilance. I slowed to the bottom of the hill, feeling the peering eyes of my village on me.
I knew the looks that they were all giving me. Disappointment. With a lump caught in my throat, tears blazed into my eyes. “Are you all afraid?" I blurted. “To try something out of the boundaries you’ve put around yourselves? Can you not see the cage we’ve built to keep ourselves inside?” I projected. “Riding down that hill made me feel more alive than the past fifteen years I’ve spent in this town. Surely you’ve all thought at least once how it would feel if you broke down those barriers and tried something new. Let’s escape together.” I pleaded. The people were silent but astonished. They needed time to sink in these words, but once they did, a throbbing, choking feeling within the air had finally lifted. It tasted of freedom. Decades pass and the village has changed into a city. People are working on inventions everyday, striving to find cures for medicine, while scientists discover more about the vastness of this world and the galaxy, as they never fail to keep their passionate eagerness alive for the motivation of advancing humanity. This is what's called living. The emptiness I once saw in their eyes has been replaced with gleaming wonder and a sense of bliss. I’ve escaped ordinary.