Story Weekend: Runaway

KeeperMickey[1]I have many tales that fit this weekend’s theme! Like the time my best friend and I ran away . . . to my screened porch, with my parents’ permission. Or the runaway kids I worked with in San Diego. But I’ll start off the comments with a different kind of runaway story that happened just today. I look forward to seeing what meaning that word has for you.

If  you’re new to Story Weekend, here’s how it works: I pick a theme and you share something from your life that relates to that theme, however you interpret it. Thanks to all of you who’ve contributed. As always, there are a few “rules”:

▪   The story must be true

▪   Try to keep it under 100 words. Embrace the challenge! That’s about six or seven lines in the comment form. I want others to read your story, and most people tend to skip if it’s too long. I know how tough it is to “write tight” but I hope you’ll accept this as a challenge. Happy writing!

 

8 Comments

  1. Diane Chamberlain on March 28, 2014 at 9:17 pm

    The two beach condos are no more than 20 yards apart and on this rainy spring day, no one else is around so I feel safe letting my dogs off leash for the short walk between the buildings. Cole follows me inside the second condo easily, but Keeper hangs back, looking at me with those spooky old eyes, one blue and one brown, and I know something is cooking in that somewhat demented brain of his. Then he is off, trotting down the stairs on his arthritic legs, deaf–quite literally–to my shouts to come back. He reaches the beach and has a few heavenly sniffs of shells and seaweed before I finally catch up to him and put an end to his moment of freedom.

  2. Martha on March 29, 2014 at 7:55 am

    I was a stay-at-home mom. At ages 4 & 6 my two little ones found themselves in trouble with me and when I handed out their sentence they banned together and threatened to run away. I played along with them, watched as they threw a few pieces of clothing into a bag; I made the peanut butter sandwich they requested and off they went. Our back yard was long and narrow, fenced in but wooded in the back. Their pet rabbits were in hutches built up off the ground. I could see their feet and legs behind the pens. They lasted long enough to eat the PB sandwiches and then came back into the house and with great resolve said they didn’t want Daddy to be sad when he came home and found them gone.

  3. Vicky on March 29, 2014 at 11:23 am

    My husband came home from work to an ultimatum: either we were going on vacation or I was going, alone. Two toddlers under that age of 3 takes its toll. He called his mother and she agreed to take the boys for the week we’d be gone exploring Cancun. Young, new parents with everything to celebrate in an up and coming place. We went on a pirates cruise, got tossed around in the waves, and felt freedom in a brand new way. We should all be able to runaway like that once in a lifetime.

  4. Lois Manowitz on March 29, 2014 at 12:30 pm

    My beloved cat, Dottie, loved to play hide-and-seek whenever I let her outdoors. We were in the midst of planting numerous trees on our property in NJ, the large holes were dug, the dirt mounds everywhere. Dottie ran out the door and did her usual sniffing around everything. Then, suddenly I couldn’t see her. I checked every hole for the small white cat, with two black dots on her sides. Nothing. Hours went by. I got frantic. Then, I see her little head popping up out of one of the holes, saying “here I am”. I still don’t know how I missed her.

  5. Lois on March 29, 2014 at 3:07 pm

    She’d been missing for over an hour. My feet were sore and my head was pounding. I cursed myself yet again for the leaving the mobile at home. I could picture it now, ringing merrily on the kitchen table with no-one there to hear it. Hot, defeated and depressed, I headed for home. Gracie could be anywhere and it was all my fault. Making my way down the field, I stumbled and fell, gashing my hand on a thistle. But as I hit the ground I caught a flash of red. What was that? I gained my balance and picked up speed. Someone was waving at me. A wave of relief flooded through my veins. It was alright. They had found Gracie and she was safe.

  6. Jill Burkinshaw on March 29, 2014 at 4:13 pm

    I have a few stories I could contribute but my favourite is: When I was young, about 5, my eldest sister would have been about 8 and she had a row with my mum and left home. We lived near a busy road and Mum was home alone with us so she rang the police. It turns out that a girl about the same age had been found murdered nearby recently so the police went on full alert and had many teams out looking for her. She was soon found and brought home so a lady police officer took Annette into a room to ‘have a chat’ about the implications of running away etc. She was in the room for a few minutes and was happy enough when she came out. The police left and all was quiet and Annette stood up hands on hips and said to Mum ” and next time I leave home if you call the police I AM NEVER COMING BACK”

  7. Nicole Spivey on March 29, 2014 at 8:15 pm

    I ran away when I was little, but I really don’t know why. I was too little to go in the road alone, so I cut through yards until I got as far as I could go without crossing the street. The old lady that lived in that particular house was not at home so I climbed her tree and sat up there for a while. When it started to get dark I went home. My parents asked where I had been and I told them that I ran away. They told me the next time I ran away they would help me pack so they could make sure I had everything that I needed. I was upset that they were not worried that I had run away.

  8. Christina Wible on March 30, 2014 at 12:16 pm

    I always wanted to run away but I was too conforming a child. Then it happened all at once. I was 25, still living at home, I’d fallen in love, he wanted to go to Texas and on the spur of the moment I packed up about a tiny portion of my life and moved with him to Texas. The neighbors back at home gossiped. My father stopped bragging about me at work. But I had escaped, I had run away.

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