Colette Theresa Nichol

308-2170 West 3rd Ave,

Vancouver, B.C.
V6K-1L1
colettetheresa@gmail.com

Word Count: 2353

Choosing to Walk
Colette Theresa Nichol

Im faster than everyone elsefaster than all the boys, and stronger too. My mother
jokes that I must have gotten some Kenyan blood, she jokes, but I think maybe its true.
When we line up to go to the gym or the field I can see over the tops of all my friends
heads. I know who has dandruff; who has a hidden cowlick; which boy is looking at
which girl; and whether hes looking at her ass, her chest, or her face.
My legs are the longest part of my body. I have one of those short torsos that makes it
seem like Im five feet tall when Im sitting down, then I stand up and suddenly Im a
giant. It would be nice to think of my long limbs as sexy, or lean, or even wiry (which at
least implies strength), but my sister tells me theyre stringy, But dont worry you wont
be made of dental floss forever.
She should really learn how to keep her mouth shut sometimes.
Compared to my sister who has a curvy hourglass figure (her words not mine), and
my best-friends, Melanie and Kristina, who both have waists that go in and hips that go
out, Im built like a boy. If you looked at me you probably wouldnt think much; you
would think I was just a skinny girl, not a skiff of muscle beneath my freckled skin. But
you would be wrong.

Choosing to Walk
Colette Theresa Nichol

I can feel my muscles when Im running: with each stride the impact of one foot and
then the other hitting the ground sends a surge of energy through the rubber soles of my
white and red runners; flashing up my legs; swirling into the pulsing, beating, squishing,
and squeezing organs which exist to keep me alive; rushing down my arms as they swing
rhythmically, boomerangs cutting the air; hitting my hands which turn red and swell, and
the blue veins along the tops pop up because theyre trying say something, theyre saying
Faster Max, faster; then shooting up my neck; tickling its way past the occipital joint (the
little knob that everything relies upon but which nobody knows about); fanning out
across my skull; diving into the ocean of miniature trampolines that is my brain; and
finally touching my face with the soft licks of a kitten.
All these thoughts pass through my mind as I stand at the top of the hill, shifting my
weight from the left foot to the right foot and back again. Were doing hill running to
prepare for the race. I was the first to run up the steep hill, reaching the top in forty-two
seconds, and setting the bar nobody else would reach. Now I wait, watching as Melanie
struggles for thirty seconds, getting about twenty feet up. Melanie hates running. She
doesnt just have hips that go out, she has a chest that goes way out. She is the not-soproud owner of the biggest breasts in school. They jiggle when she runs, even though she
wears two sports bras.
Kristina has already gone; she went right after me and got further than Melanie, but not
by much. She could be a great runner: she has the legs for it. But she also has asthma
and scoliosis, and she refuses to wear gym strip. Right now shes wearing a pair of
flowered culottes; a white, silk dress-shirt; a hair-band covered in peacock feathers; and a

Choosing to Walk
Colette Theresa Nichol

pair of brown, leather, Jesus sandals she bought in Israel last Christmas. Kristina is what
my father calls a darn funny character.
Our teacher, Mr. Riddich, could also be considered a darn funny character. He shaves
his head and his arms and his legs, and he rides his bicycle to school everyday. It takes
him about an hour and a half to get to school because he lives three towns over from
Naramata. And when he arriveswearing spandex and a pointy red helmet that makes
him look like an antthere are always sweat splotches running down his back, his front,
his pits, and his butt. Hes a tri-athlete, thus the extreme exercise routine and the
shaving; Kristina asked him about it once, the shaving, and he said it was related to
wearing a wetsuit.
If I ever get married Id like to marry a triathlete.
Twenty minutes later and finally everyone has run the hill. As we head back to school
Mr. Riddich explains the logic behind hill running, You need to build your endurance,
your stamina, yeah? If you can keep going strong all the way up all of the hills, no
stopping, no walking, youll be ahead of everyone else. That hill back there is murder.
Its on a seventy-degree angle; it doesnt get worse than that. Weve got a week left, one
week, and were going to work that hill until you wanna kill me.

As I make my bed, drink my green power-shake (which my sister says looks like the
inside of a cows stomach), and get ready to go to school my mind is clear. This year I
will win the race, the entire race, not just the girls race, the whole race. Its never been
done before; its always been a boy to hit the finish line first, and its only been a
Naramatian once. We host the race but we never win.

Choosing to Walk
Colette Theresa Nichol

Youre like prairie oxen, you can pull that wagon across the plains forever, but
youre slow. Slow and methodical. This is what Mr. Riddich tells us, but hes not
talking about me. Im too tall and too stringy to be an ox. My father likes to say Im his
little racehorse, then he ruffles my hair and I punch him hard in the arm so he knows he
cant get away with that, now that Im twelve.
As I slam out the front door I yell goodbye to my parents. Im walking across the yard
when I get this feelinga sort of rhythmic gnawing in my chest. Its not doubt, but I
dont know what it is. Its the same feeling I had last night at dinner. My father asked
me what was wrong because I was eating slowly and frowning, and I usually gobble my
dinner in three minutes, make a pain of myself until dessert, and then disappear. I told
him nothing was wrong and started eating more quickly, trying to ignore the strange
anxiety creeping from my heart to my throat.
So again, I push the feeling away, and walk quickly towards school.

My shoe-laces have been tied and re-tied; my white and red running gear is freshly
washed and pressed and looks brand-new; my hair is pulled back so tightly my scalp
tingles; and every muscle in my body is stretched, warm, and readyanticipating the
moment when I will leap forward; the muscles in my legs sending me down the bumpy,
paved-but-pot-holed road; past the sprawling, white buildings of the Naramata Center;
along the dirt path through the bush lot; past Manitou Park; up Old Mill Road; past the
stone mansion; through the dwarf apple orchard to the street I can never remember the
name of; turning down the hill just before the school; reaching the park entrance for the
second time; and breaking the yellow ribbon with my body, as the photographer from

Choosing to Walk
Colette Theresa Nichol

The Herald snaps my picture, and a cameraman from Channel 8 gets footage for the local
sports break which goes on every night at five minutes to six.
The woman in the shiny pink and lilac tracksuit holds the starter pistol high, her arm
straight, pointing at the cloudless sky. I hear it go off, a quick crack of thunder; its the
last sound I remember until the cheering of the crowd when I hit the yellow ribbon fortyeight minutes later.
Its a record time. The winner in 1964 came in at fifty minutes and nobody has beaten
that time since. Until today.
A reporter from The Herald wants to do an interview. I answer his questions, still
panting, but something is missing. Mr. Riddich claps me on the back, Dammit, Max,
you really know how to show up. Kristina and Melanie run in together, faces a
matching raspberry red. They scream and jump up and down when they find out Im the
winner. Where are your parents? asks Melanie, looking around.
The gnawing returns; they arent here. I see the sports reporter from Channel 8 coming
towards me, and I break away from Kristina and Melanie, running in the opposite
direction, out of the park, past the crumbling CPR hotel, around the long bend, past the
train-docks where two teenage girls in baggy jeans are smoking, past the empty red
summer cottages, to my house: a wooden A-frame my parents built together right after
they got married. The front door is wide open and the shiny red VW van, which is
usually parked on the front lawn, is missing.
I stand on the patch of dry, yellow grass that serves as our car-park, staring at the open
door until my body crumples to the ground and the world goes black, and for a moment

Choosing to Walk
Colette Theresa Nichol

there is only the peace of not knowing that anything besides the darkness of my own
mind exists.
A few minutes later I come to. The sun burns my eyes and the grass tickles my legs
and arms. I try to get up but have to stop, kneeling as though in prayer, waiting until the
dizziness subsides. The door is still open.

Im sitting at the kitchen table staring at the wallIve never looked so hard at the
Mexican chilli border that runs along the top of the kitchenwhen he knocks. I look up
and see Mr. Riddich standing in the doorframe. Can I come in?
I nod.
He sits down next to me at the table, and for a minute does nothing, looking down at
his hands, and then up at the side of my face. Do you know what a stroke is?
Yes, Im still staring at the wall. I read about a football player who had one and
couldnt play again because the entire left side of his body was paralysed.
The Sports First article, yeah, thats right. He stops, and then re-starts, Max, your
father had a stroke this morning. Hes in the Penticton Hospital right now.
All I can see is one, gigantic, red chilli coming towards me. Is he going to die?
No, I dont think so, but hes in a coma. Mr. Riddich pauses and clears his throat,
Would you like to go to the hospital? I can take you there, or we can wait here.
Whatever you want Max. Its up to you.
I feel like I just swallowed a jellyfish and now its trying to escape, bashing its globby
head against my belly, stinging my insides. Standing up; and walking out the door; and
driving to the hospital; and seeing my father wearing one of those blue gowns that makes

Choosing to Walk
Colette Theresa Nichol

anybody look sick, even if they arent; and then noticing that there are tubes coming out
of his arms and nose, and his eyes are closed, and we dont know when they might open
doesnt seem possible. So I just shake my head and look at the scarred surface of the
table. Its a piece of burnt oak, four-inches thick. My father found it in a barn in South
Carolina when he and my mother were on their honeymoon. The farmer sold it to him
for ten bucks. They strapped it to the top of their VW van and drove all the way back to
B.C. with one-hundred pounds of hard wood on their roof. Thats the way my father tells
it.
That he might never know I won enters my mind, and I feel heavy.
You know, Mr. Riddich is speaking, horrible things happen Max, everyday. When
I was twenty-five my old man got shot in the back of the head.
Now Im staring at him.
He worked at a bank, the bank got held up, he tried to call the police, and that was it.
I almost killed myself that year. I couldnt see the point in living in a world where horror
was an ever present reality. I lost sight of the other side of the horror. Im not saying this
to take away from your pain, Im saying it so you dont forget about everything else. Its
still the same world Max.
I begin to breath from my belly. My body is numb, but the fog has lifted. I know it
will return, but I know Mr. Riddich is right.
I can see the sun as it shines through the bamboo blinds, making stripes of light on the
brown, tile floor, and my stomach growls loudly, reminding me I havent eaten since
seven this morning. And as my father would say, drinking grass is not eating.

Choosing to Walk
Colette Theresa Nichol

We drive to town in the school mini-bus, and get two orders of jumbo poutine at
Jeffers Fries, eating them at one of the round river-rock tables in the square. A
panhandler is on the corner singing Roxanne and jingling a mason jar of change.
I scrape the last of the gravy with my plastic fork, licking it clean, and then slowly
push the four bendy prongs through the waxy bottom of the to-go box.

Do you want me to go in with you?

Were at the hospital. No, I reply, Ill go alone. Thanks.
The emergency-room doors slide open automatically when I get close. I want to turn
and run away, down the street past the big box stores and the fast food restaurants until I
get to the water. But I dont do it, I put my left foot in front of my right foot and my right
in front of my left, and as I walk into the waiting room I realize this is the first time I
have wanted to runso badly the soles of my feet acheand have chosen, instead, to
walk.

Choosing to Walk
Colette Theresa Nichol