She could not picture it. Herself riding on the subway or streetcar, caring for new horses, talking to new people, living among hordes of people every day who were not Clark.
A life, a place, chosen for that specific reason––that it would not contain Clark.
The strange and terrible thing coming clear to her about that world of the future, as she now pictured it, was that she would not exist there. She would only walk around, and open her mouth and speak, and do this and do that. She would not really be there. And what was strange about it was that she was doing all this, she was riding on this bus in the hope of recovering herself. As Mrs. Jamieson might say––and as she herself might with satisfaction have said––
. With nobody glowering over her, nobody's mood infecting her with misery.
But what would she care about? How would she know that she was alive?
While she was running away from him––now––Clark still kept his place in her life. But when she was finished running away, when she just went on, what would she put in his place? What else––who else––could ever be so vivid a challenge?
A life, a place, chosen for that specific reason––that it would not contain Clark.
The strange and terrible thing coming clear to her about that world of the future, as she now pictured it, was that she would not exist there. She would only walk around, and open her mouth and speak, and do this and do that. She would not really be there. And what was strange about it was that she was doing all this, she was riding on this bus in the hope of recovering herself. As Mrs. Jamieson might say––and as she herself might with satisfaction have said––
. With nobody glowering over her, nobody's mood infecting her with misery.
But what would she care about? How would she know that she was alive?
While she was running away from him––now––Clark still kept his place in her life. But when she was finished running away, when she just went on, what would she put in his place? What else––who else––could ever be so vivid a challenge?
( Alice Munro )
[ Runaway ]
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