Running On Lavender Fields

Just as he was beginning to fall asleep, he heard a quick shuffling on the gray, concrete of the vestibule floor, just on the other side of the gray wall. It sounded like slippers tiptoeing and coats swishing against each other. Light whispers creeped through the air. Finding their way through the darkness into cracks in the gray stone walls like snakes. Curiosity overtook him. This was the moment to make his move, it would be his big break. If he caught these runners then they’d have to give him the job he had worked so hard to get. The job he so greatly deserved. 

His lavender sheets fell to the ground in a quiet hush as he sat up in his gray bed and put his ear to the hole in the gray stone wall to listen to the sounds that came from the hallway. 

“Quickly we have to hurry” an urgent male’s hushed voice whispered, as the shuffling quickened. 

“Shh, you will wake them” a woman’s gentle but assertive voice responded, as she gasped for breath. She was hurrying to keep up with him. The man must have noticed this because the shuffling slowed almost instantly. 

Silently, he shifted his weight on the bed to the edge and carefully pulled his feet out to touch the ice cold ground. He couldn’t see much in the dark but would have to keep it that way, if they saw the light coming from the room they’d run for sure. He slowly stood, inch by inch so the bed would not creek. He stepped around his lavender sheets that had fallen to the ground just moments before. A memory rushed to him and caught him by surprise. It was a memory of his first day in college, when he was only 14 years old. Everyone had gotten gray sheets as their going away gifts, it was just what was done, rather what was allowed. But his mother had put his present into a cardboard box that she had kept, before she gave them to him. 

“Open it in your room” she beamed, wearing her most mischievous smile, knowing that it was frowned upon to have colored things she had hidden them. Not for herself but for her son because she knew how uncomfortable he felt when he was singled out. She, instead, had a deep violet dress that just barely touched the floor. It started at her breasts where it was tight until it got to her waist, where it fell in beautiful, almost transparent, purple pieces of material that waved with the wind. She looked only twenty even though she was thirty-nine, and it was not just her clothes that made her seem like this but also the way she acted, she was still fun and joyous, unlike most of the other adults there. His mother was always different from everyone else. Everyone else had on gray suits or simple gray dresses with the occasional spruce of only a bit of a color, so they didn't stand out. No one else wanted to stand out, but she adored it. 

After, as all the parents walked with their children to see where they must live for the next five years, his mother practically ran to his room because she couldn’t wait for him to open her gift. He slowly followed behind, he never ran, it was not approved of, and therefore he didn’t do it. Once they got there, they didn’t waste a moment. She shut the door and gave him the box. He opened his present and she grinned.

“What do you think?” He was stunned, desperately he had tried to come up with something but all he could say was

“They.. they are purple” He stammered. 

“Lavender, actually”  She corrected, in her sweet voice. 

“So do you like them? I thought it would be good to have something different from everyone , something that is just yours. Here it is like a big military coup, all the same and I want you to remember that you are different. I want you to have something to remind you of me” 

She kept going on but he had zoned out, but one of the words she had said confused him.

He hesitated, “Here? What do you mean ‘here’? This is the only place you have ever lived.” 

She laughed and teased, “You know that this community isn’t the only place out there, right?”

That was the first time it occurred to him that there was a world outside his home. He had been so focused on school and their community that it never crossed his mind. He was filled with questions: What was it like out there? Was she from there? Is that why she was so different? He wanted to ask more questions but he knew this wasn’t the time or place. He should have though, he thought as the memory replayed itself in his head.

“Yeah, right” He faltered.

“Anyway, I love them,- He took them out of the box and held them as if they were his most prized possessions, because they were- they are amazingly beautiful. Thank you mom” He said.

She giggled, smiled, and pulled him in for a hug. The memory had ended and his job flew out of his mind and he was left with only questions.

Didn’t he owe it to his mom to try? Should he try to join the runners? Go to the outside? A light came from under the door that distracted him from his thoughts.

“Are you ok?”, the man’s voice asked, concerned. 

“I’m scared, what will happen out there? What if it’s worse than in here?”, she urged.

“I know but at least you will be together.”

He knew what he was going to do. Sunlight crept under his door as he took one final look around his room, the home he had known for the past 5 years. He would miss it but there was nothing left here for him. He picked up the lavender sheets his mother had given him and stuffed them in his backpack that was sitting next to the foot of his gray bed. Before his mother died they had made a promise, it was one of the last things left of her and he would make good of it. He slipped on his shoes. One day his child would use his lavender sheets and he would tell the story, the story of how he ran from his home, from everything he knew. He walked to the door of his gray room. Slowly he turned the handle and opened it. Light flooded the room. He looked across the hall, the woman he loved, who now held his child, looked back at him, crouched and panting under the large glass window. The first rays of sunlight shined down on her, making her dress glitter. She wore the same beautiful dark violet dress that his mother had on that day. Next to her was his best friend. 

“John”, she whispered as she ran to embrace him.

While the first rays of light danced on their backs, he held her, and it all became clear as into her ear he whispered, 

“Let’s run”