Runner's Prize

Runner’s Prize

By INtrinSicliValud

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

 

 

Copyright © 2025 INtrinSicliValud

 

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact: intrinsiclivalud100@yahoo.com

“Damn it,” I grumbled, glaring at the time on my phone.

After shoving aside the bed sheets and getting to my feet, I gathered my running gear. Like tiny jewels, glimmering droplets clung to my apartment windows. Beyond the other downtown towers, dim flashes in a night sky heavy with clouds along with fading thunder announced the departure of the storm that had serenaded my tossing and turning.

Back from a two-week assessment of a mining conglomerate in Mongolia, my internal clock remained haywire. You’d think after all the travel for dad, it wouldn’t affect me as much, but it did.

“Don’t worry, Tigh. You’ll get used to it,” he had said, head-cocked and wearing that not quite judgmental half-smile as we parted at the airport.

While lacing my shoes, I’d no clue he’d soon become the least of my problems, nor that my world teetered, about to be smashed into a million pieces.

Well before dawn, the streets remained dark but for isolated circles beneath streetlights. In the shadows, broad puddles and dribbling rivulets shimmered. Soon enough, the chill on my skin faded, and as usual, while pounding along the damp pavement, I let time wander away. As my sneakers splashed, my mind began forming the data for dad’s report. Numbers and images of the decrepit facilities tumbled, forming and reforming.

Right as I jogged past a cross street, a drizzle swirled from it, engulfing me. Even as I moved beyond the intersection, the rain stiffened and still mostly focused on Mongolia, the rest of my brain made a simple decision.

At the next crossing, a literal fork in the road, I slowed. My usual route continued another four miles straight ahead, but at fresh thunder rumbling closer, and a bright flash overhead, illuminating the base of thickening, dark clouds, I shook my head. 

Thus, a fateful decision: my loping strides moved to the left. Shorter, that two-mile path led to a footbridge over a concrete-lined “river.” It also twisted through the rougher section of town, not that anyone should be about that early or in such weather. 

By the half-mile mark, I nodded to myself. Yep, correct. The only fool moving along the darker roadways looked a lot like me. As the raindrops grew heavier, spattering down in the glimmer of fewer working streetlamps, my ever-damper footfalls carried me past seedy bars, all dark and silent by then, a multitude of pawnshops bearing garish signs and shut storefronts. 

Intermixed with commercial lots and trash-littered empty spaces, squatted residential buildings. The dirt-streaked blocks reeked of misfortune, destitution, and empty hopes. Right as the rainfall strengthened, a mist swirled up from the ground, adding to an already oppressive gloom. 

At last, the narrow bridge’s arching white metal frame came into sight, and, shoes splashing louder, I increased my pace. As my racing footsteps dodged spreading puddles, greater puffs of fog blasted from my mouth. The memory of Coach Stanton, my fierce-faced high school track coach, appeared.

“Time to bring it home,” I muttered, sending droplets from my lips to glitter in the dim mist.

In mid-stride, arms pumping, breath puffing in the dimness before me, it happened. Head in hands, a lone figure on a bench under a flickering streetlamp caught my attention. As I neared, the shadowed silhouette resolved into a woman sitting bent forward with legs crossed. Long dark hair, glimmering along with the raindrops slicing beneath the flashing light, lay plastered to her, curtaining her face and torso. Drops of water spattered from the matted ends to the sidewalk’s cracked, shiny concrete.

Another junkie? Or an exhausted hooker, too tired or strung-out on any of a dozen drugs, more likely a mixture, to find her way back to a sleeping pimp. Just one example of countless misfortunate city-dwellers. 

Soaked, a thin ivory top had become a second skin over her bent spine. No more than a tiny strip of leopard print, a miniskirt revealed most of toned, olive-skinned legs ending in glossy black heels. 

So, a hooker. 

In any event, at that moment, she didn’t appear to be a wrecking ball. Especially when my splashing sneakers slowed, and quiet sobbing met my ears.

On any other day, with rain intensifying by the second, mighty rumbles shaking the darkness, and the flashes overhead quickening, I would have jogged onward, avoiding the deepening puddles. But not that day. On that day, my brain chose to rebel. 

Sure, my father’s warning echoed. The one reinforced by him since forever.

“Son, a million sob stories reside down there.” Arm around my shoulder, he’d gazed from the massive windows lining his equally massive office high atop a…massive skyscraper. “We can’t fix them all. You worry about yourself. Focus on this business. And your future. The world can take care of itself.”

When I’d given him a slow nod, he had smiled the smile of a righteous parent. 

But right then, the woman’s hitching sobs spiked, and my sneakers splatted to a halt before that rain-soaked bench. Maybe a bit of mom lingered. Or perhaps some part of me wished my world would shatter.

“You okay?” I said, keeping my distance, squatting on the road, fast becoming a stream. “This, uh, isn’t such a nice neighborhood.”

With no break in the sobs, she nodded. After a quiet sniffle, she pointed behind her.

“Si, claro,” came from beneath the dripping shiny hair in a heavy Spanish accent. “I know. I live here.” Another sob left her. “Well, um, a couple of blocks over.”

After following her gesture, I squinted through the sluicing droplets. In a flash of lightning, beyond a pathetic tangle of playground equipment, rusty and chipped, once-colorful paint glistening in the rain, stretched a shadowed neighborhood. A street of old brownstone row houses, more than a few sporting boarded windows.

With a heavy breath, I returned to her. A quick sweep of my brow with the back of my wrist sent droplets twinkling to the ground. Thunder rumbled ever closer, and lightning lit the nearby footbridge leading to the towers. In my mind, dad reappeared, head-cocked, wearing that damn smile, and hand gesturing. Neither my world, nor was she my problem. 

Except, instead of rising and heading towards my life, I stayed in place, scanning her. Call it fate, mom, a desire for…change, whatever, but my lips parted, admitting cool raindrops. 

“You, um, don’t seem alright,” I said.

Although I expected another nod, perhaps a curse and a curt “get lost,” her head flew upwards. At the sight of a fine-boned face, covered in droplets, sparkling like diamonds under the blinking light, my heart stammered. Despite the smeared makeup, a visage of royalty appeared, as in one of those paintings of Spanish queens. The ones who’d sent thousands of besotted men to explore or fight for them with the merest flick of a dainty wrist or bat of a long, dark eyelash. 

The bench hooker version was darker-complexioned than those ivory goddesses, yet she possessed the same high cheekbones and sculpted arching eyebrows. Ensconced in faltering eye shadow, shiny brown lasers stabbed deep. At their corners stretched a few wrinkles. So, older, perhaps late-30s, or could’ve been the effects of a rougher life.

As those brilliant eyes widened, the spattering rainfall, thunder, and lightning faded. Time wobbled when full, crimson lips parted. A hand flicked through dangling curls, shoving them clear of her face. 

At the flash of an enormous diamond ring on her finger, my heart slowed. Nope, I hadn’t noticed it had been racing, and a quick shake of my head cleared it of silly dreams of royalty in my future.

Confirmation: not my problem…at all. The husband could help her. That’s what spouses are for, right? Just as my legs tensed, ready to propel me upward and away, heading for the bridge, her sigh held me in place. 

“Ai, carajo!” She gritted bright white teeth. “Por qué… Why the fuck are men such assholes?”

“Ah, such are the deep mysteries a troubled heart holds,” I muttered.

“Huh?” One of those perfect dark eyebrows arched. 

“Just a thought.” I shrugged. “Sorry.” 

Right then, married hooker or not, my problem or not, the world kinda narrowed onto her upturned face. Still glittering, tiny droplets slipped down mascara-streaked cheeks; the cutest bubbles fluttered in narrow nostrils. Again, flooding with every warning dad had ever provided, my brain wobbled as I gestured to the far end of the bench. 

“May I?” 

“Sure.” She sniffled, glancing at the spot. “It’s a free world.”

“Thanks.” 

As I rose from the crouch, tight muscles achy—stopping in mid-run is never a good idea—those dark eyes, again widening, tracked me. The sobbing had slowed, but she said nothing as I moved to the sodden wood slats. After sitting with a muffled splat, I scanned the misty rain. 

“Plus, I’m gonna go with testosterone.” I chuckled. “Small brain between our legs thinking instead of the larger one. Besides, overall, we’re just stupider.”

“What?” The bench queen’s head tilted.

“Your question.” I grinned, rivulets sluicing free of my matted short hair to race down still-warm skin.

“Oh.” 

A slender eyebrow arching, she kept her gaze on me. A much louder rumble accompanied a racing sheet of harder rain and, when a flash splayed across the clouds in the ever so slightly lighter sky, a shiver rippled through her. Those bright teeth chattered.

“Look, you sure you’re gonna be okay?” I asked.

“Si. I already told you ‘Yes.’” She clasped her arms tight to the thin ivory pasted to her chest and sat upright. “You can move along, mister knight man.”

At that, I laughed. Never so far from the truth. Dad hated heroes, calling them fools who tilted at windmills. “Can’t win that fight. Always losing,” he’d proclaimed a million times.

Okay, he was correct. Like it always did, reality seeped into my mind. Besides, she was somebody else’s windmill. Sorry, mom.

“Alright,” I said.

Just as I started rising from the damp wood, another sob escaped her, and after a quick wave to shoo me away, both hands again clasped her face. When she broke into heavier crying, damn if my butt didn’t settle back onto the rain-soaked bench. Some windmills simply shouldn’t be left alone. Not that mom had said anything like that, but still….

“Y-You can go,” she murmured wetly from beneath her palms.

“Yeah, I know.”

Once more, muscles tightened, ready to lift, propelling me toward the world I knew so well. Again, I’d be my father’s son; he’d taught me better. Except, those muscles refused, relaxing, mutinying against my brain’s ever more strident calls to abandon her. With a sigh I reclined, sodden T-shirt mashing into chilly, rain-soaked wood, and scanned the swirling showers.

“Why are you still here, gringo?” 

Her voice brought me back to her just as a hand lowered. Amid smeared blackness, a single flooded brown pool gazed at me. 

“I’ll be fine,” she added.

“We’re assholes, remember?” After shoving the last of dad’s fading complaints to the deepest corner of my mind, I managed a smile. “Besides, it’s a free world.”

“Well, at least you listen.” 

“Hubby doesn’t?”

“Guessed that, huh?” When she twirled her fingers, droplets slithered from a substantial golden ring. “Yeah, he’s being stupid.” 

“Sorry to hear it.” 

And I was, but at a sudden downburst of frigid raindrops, my glance flicked skyward to the misty gray darkness blocking the sun’s growing light. After a slow gulp, I returned to her. No mere gaze, her shiny-eyed stare had my chest tightening. With no idea what to do next, I fell back on windmill-tilting mode and looked beyond the playground.

“But, um, you really shouldn’t stay out in this,” I said. “If you want, I could…dunno, walk you home.”

“Oh, right?” A quiet chuckle left her as slender fingers swiped at her eyes. Deep crimson trimmed in gold, her long nails shimmered. “That’ll help.”

“Huh?”

“Guy like you, with me. Arturo sees that”—she sniffled—“and he’ll go nuts.”

“Guy like me?” 

Head tilted and brow tight, I gave myself a quick once-over. Mud-streaked sneakers, socks weighed down by filthy rainwater at my ankles, sodden shorts, and a gray cotton t-shirt stuck to me by sweat and rain. What could her husband possibly think?

“Fishing, huh?” She laughed under her breath, then sniffed. “Señor tall, dark, and handsome. Lemme guess. Football player?”

“Um, no.” I shook my head, confusion flooding me. “Just workout. Eat right.” 

Okay, the windmill had refused my offer of assistance. Clock was ticking and the Mongolia report wouldn’t write itself. 

“Anyway, look.” Once again, I readied to stand. “Gotta go. I can….” My glance shifted to the row homes, their murky fronts a little brighter, enhancing the worn ugliness. “Uh, at least until you see your house.” 

“Gracias, but no.”

After a slow shake of her head, she also scanned the playground. The equipment looked no better in the dim rising sunlight. 

What did I do? Muscles tightened, ready to lift, then relaxed, before tensing once more. Just as I tried again, a car meandered past. 

Silvery hubcaps twinkling in the rain, it cut a swath through the shallow stream between overflowing gutters. From beyond dark tinted windows, muffled chest-thumping music reverberated. 

Dad would hate that. Not that unseen eyes were scanning my soaked bench mate, a married hooker with the face of a queen. No, the fact I sat beside her, staring down the car, fists balled tight until it slid from view behind misty gray curtains of rain. Yep, back in windmill-jousting mode. Mom would love that.

“Um, there must be a hotel or something nearby. Stay a night or two. There’s shelters.” I scanned the murk. “You could call for a rideshare.” 

“Phone’s at home,” she muttered. 

“Oh.”

Before my brain, overtaxed by both the dark-eyed, black-haired windmill so near me and lingering exhaustion, could scrounge any other bright ideas, a gust blasted across us. Fatter droplets shot sideways under the streetlight. At the sound of teeth chattering, I returned to her pale visage. 

Still wide and locked on me, her eyes gleamed beneath a knitted brow. Under that intense gaze, heat fought the chill on my face, but I glanced at the glinting diamond on her finger. That heat cooled, and I looked toward the footbridge’s gentle arch and the curving roadway beyond, leading me away from the wrong neighborhood, filled with so many windmills…and her.