Trivial Pursuit

"Stay" said he, his eyes cornering her into a formulated phrase. His mental parentheses and hesitations converting the subjective into the submissive.
"Stay" he hinted, he hoped, he worried. Would she? Would her untrammeled nature yield to his suggestion.

Daphne took two quivering steps backwards. Her ankles shook. She climbed out of her pointed heels. Barefoot, she slyly kicked her shoes towards him.

Cold, coveted concrete: she loved the sensation. Soft flesh touching face with the pavement. A gritty greeting. A sharp invitation to flee.

Heel to toe. Heel to toe. With the grace of the Gods: heel to toe. Her legs worked the air like scissors to paper. Slashing past the soaring high rises, the apartments, the bustling coffee house chatter, the stop signs, and the stalled taxis. Faster. Faster. Swoosh. Duck. Swoosh. She hurled her body with the sweet anticipation of a long jumper. Into what? She did not know. It was the not knowing that she preferred.


She could hear his voice trailing from behind. This made her push harder: heel to toe. Faster and faster.


"daughter of Peneus; I am not a foe. Do not fly from me as a lamb flies the wolf, or a dove the hawk. It is for love I pursue you. You make me miserable, for fear that you should fall and hurt yourself on this concrete, and I should be the cause. Pray run slower, and I will follow slower. I am no clown, no rude peasant. Zeus is my father, and I am lord of Delphos and Tenedos, and know all things, present and future. I am the god of song and the lyre. My arrows fly true to the mark; but alas! an arrow more fatal than mine has pierced my heart! I am the god of medicine, and know the virtue of all healing plants. Alas! I suffer a malady that no balm can cure!"

"Apollo you fool, it is not me who you pursue, but an idealized and unsustainable version of yourself," she panted.

Daphne looked down at her feet, she could feel the skin slowly peeling away like flakes of dry paint.

The concrete below was impervious to roots. Laurel trees don't grow in busy business districts eclipsed by monoliths of glass and steel.


She pleaded for a chasm, a gash in the middle of an infinite stretch of concrete. If only the Gods would obliged her, just this once.

Heel to toe. Heel to toe. Her faltering sprint turned into a trot, her trot into a gallop. Her svelte and muscled legs, hooves and all, propelled her forward with renewed strength.

And Apollo?

Apollo? Apollo who?