Run.

• Author: Stark, Christine
• Position: Short story

Today I was driving up north to teach, and the road was clear and sunny, and the trees were mottled rust and orange with a few bright green leaves still hanging on, and I had Minnesota Public Radio on, and I was thinking of my grandma like I always do when I listen to MPR, and it was a good day--and did I mention the sun was off to my left just skimming a few hours over the horizon? I was sipping some whey-protein cappuccino drink, which was actually pretty tasty, and I had just snacked on a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup to go along with that creamy but bland whey-coffee taste, and I was in rural Minnesota far away from the clatter of the city and all those liberal white folks and smacking my lips from that coffee and chocolate and peanut butter, thinking good thoughts, thinking life is good, that I've got my midterm grades done, all the quizzes and midterm tests are stuffed in my cheap black briefcase I picked up at a garage sale a few years ago, my students will be glad, they'll give me good assessments, I'm getting my work done on time, I'm getting organized, I paid my bills over the weekend, I'm going to get my teeth cleaned and one will get capped, I ate some stir fry with cabbage and onions for lunch, I went for a run, my heating bill is only thirty bucks this late in the season, the litter box is clean, my twenty-year-old cat is putting on weight, my dog has new chew bones, my stories are coming out in Feminist Studies, my mom is holding her own against the cancer, I went to Big Drum over the weekend, my friends and I are making a power-and-control wheel for Native women, I got my boat in storage, my prep for tomorrow is done, I sent out those thank you notes, I worked on some art earlier today, my house is clean, my laundry is done, I'm wearing this new brown sweater with wide baggy sleeves just the way I like them, I have the best car in the world, it's still running even though the oil pressure valve burst in Minneapolis a month ago and the oil sprayed out all over the car's belly and began clacking, which means one of the rods is going to bust through the engine and smack into the hood at any time.

There I was, headed up north to teach a group of unassuming (and mostly uninterested) students the finer points of oratory when I looked off to my right at a semi I was hauling ass on; and my brain clicked on these chains, thick shiny loops of steel wrapped around something, the sleds, the feet, of snowmobiles and like a camera my...