Burning Sun

Day: seventeen, entry no: eight:

The sun is especially hot today, burning onto my back as though I’m an ant beneath a magnifying glass. The sun is playful, to be frank. He’s sneaky, sly, and almost cruel. He grins from above a thin veil of lazily moving storm clouds but still burns me as if he were unhindered. I can barely hold my pencil, the sweat and ash on my fingers are making my hands too slippery. I pried the locket on my neck from the broken carcass of a man who’d stopped moving for too long and been burned to death- apparently too old to continue the constant chase, from what I can tell.

As far as I’ve been able to deduce, one can stand still for a maximum of three hours before the sun becomes hot enough to be genuinely harmful. I learned this by observing a stray dog who’d injured his leg whilst running. I wanted desperately to help him, bandage his leg and bring him along with me, but the world has grown too difficult to maneuver with an injury of that extent. He’d die quickly, if I took him in.I observed him religiously, watching the sun grow more and more intense on his mange-infested skin. When the sun started to redden his flesh dangerously, the watch in my necklace read that five hours had passed since I watched him fall over. I remember specifically the taste of vomit on my tongue when he began crying. He’d been howling for hours before, scarcely letting up to breathe in his wails for assistance, but his weeping was heart-wrenching. He’d given in, I could see that, but clearly he wasn’t content in it. He wept wretchedly, and I felt his whimpers in my fingertips. I should be used to crying animals, dear god I worked in a laboratory that heavily practiced animal testing, but I’ve never felt content in it.

I can barely feel my feet. I've been running for so long, but the memory refreshes in my mind whenever I relax. I acknowledge that I have more time than I let myself take to stand still, but I can't make myself take more than thirty minutes each time I stop. The sun is relentless, so I will be too. I should run again soon. I've been stagnant for a while, but I’m so tired. My feet are bleeding terribly, rubbed raw in my shoes- which clearly weren’t made to run in. I didn’t exactly have time to change them when the sun began chasing anything that moved.

I can't help but wonder if I should allow myself to fall asleep here. I’ve been lying here, barely covered by a tree growing from a crack in the road, for an hour now. Too long, but somehow not nearly long enough.

The clock locket tells the time faithfully- and I had my doubts, I’ll be the first to admit. The clearly once heart- shaped metal is dented at every angle, only barely recognisable to have ever been a specific shape. It clearly had some significance to the man from whom I took it, where it only has means of convenience to me. Perhaps that makes me wicked, but unfortunately that hardly has priority of mind with current events. I can barely see the page, the sun has grown so bright. I suppose this is what the dog had to have seen.

Perhaps I deserve to allow myself to fall asleep, burn under parasitic sun, as repentance for letting him die. Perhaps I'm making excuses.

The truth is, I'm not all that motivated to stay alive. Continuing constant motion is terrifying, a bitter reality stretching too far into my future for me to spot the end of it. It’s a matter of when, so why not make that time now?

I’m on the verge of tears, but I can't comprehend why. I can’t recall ever being particularly inimical to the concept of death, but suddenly the idea is deeply saddening.

I suppose it’s ironic, to only fear death when it comes.

I’m going to let myself fall asleep now, however much I want to move. I haven't the energy to keep running.

I’ve been running for so long.