Tell in the comments what I should name it
I’m thinking possible options include:
Run Joan Run
Drama Trauma Trail
Sweat, blood, and tears
I’m inspired by English class and an activity that I did while working nights at work. I’ve used a random word generator and I will tell a story. But the words from the generator are very common and I wanted to expand my vocabulary and perhaps yours as well dear reader. So I looked up the word of the day in the online dictionary. Then I found the article “Daily Favorites: “Gumption,” “Canoodle” & More” on https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/top-10-most-liked-word-of-the-day.
Is this the “proper” citation? Probably not but it’s something. Ideally I’ll get better with practice. Or I’ll get old and stuck in my ways.
Joan’s sport bra was drenched and her forehead and back glistened in the sun wet with sweat also. She hunched over, hands on her knees trying to force as much air into her lungs as possible. Her throat burned.
She looked at her watch. It was flashing 00:00. Not a single second of her practice time was captured. She groaned deeper.
She did half of her practice. She was by the city river trail.
A little boy learning tricks on his bike was looking behind at his dad. He took off a hand and began to wave. The bike wobbled. He tried to steady himself but he crashed into Joan.
She braced her fall with her hands but she still managed to scrape her knees. Her perfectly curated track set was ruined. She had both a hole in her pants and her skin and blood was coming to the skin’s surface and soiling the fabric.
Joan broke the boy’s fall. He was more startled than severely injured. He wore a morose expression. His eyes welling with tears, “ I’m so sorry miss,” he whispered.
Joan caught her breath but she still took in a deep sigh. “I’ll be okay. Are you all right?”
She dusted herself off and stood up slowly. She reached a hand out to the boy.
“What the fuck are you doing!?” A man rushed toward them.
Joan was bewildered about the cause of the man’s aggression. The boy made a simple mistake. And she was trying to help him up and console him.
The man grabbed the boy and lifted him up.
“I wasn’t trying to overstep by touching your child. He seems upset and I wanted to let him know it’s okay.” Joan began explaining in an attempt to calm the man.
The man was crapulous. “Listen”, he said, pausing to drink from his canteen what most certain was not water, “that’s not the root of the issue. You knocked down my boy.”
The man seemed to have flummoxed who was the cause of this fall.
“What kind of idiot doesn’t pay attention in a public park,” he slurred loudly.
The father’s account of the events was incorrect but people started to stop and look over at them.
It didn’t take sagacious assessment to see that he was a piss poor drunk looking to pick a fight. Anyone with a nose could the smell the liquor on him. It was deep in his pores. Today’s behavior was not a one off event.
“I didn’t even see the kid until he was on top of me. I wouldn’t–”
“Bullshit,” he cut her off mid sentence.
They looked to the boy. Joan expected his confession to end this ridiculous scene. The child looked terrified and his tongue floundered about. He couldn’t form the words.
A woman walked up with an ice cream in her hand.
“What happened?” She asked.
“This Bitch knocked Ben off his bike.”
The woman scooped up Ben and canoodled him. “I’m sorry Bennie. Mommy’s here. Are you alright?”
The stress visibly slowly vanished from Bennie’s face.
His mom got close to his ear and whispered , “what really happened? Did she really hurt you?”
The man directed his anger back to Joan. “The least you could do is pay for the damages for the bike.”
Bennie shook his head left to right. No
The man looked over at them trying to prompt Ben to nod his head vertically.
The woman snapped, “It’s always about money with you. I bet that woman didn’t knock him down.”
She pointed at Joan, “Look at her you fucking idiot. She’s bloody and Bennie doesn’t have a scratch on him.”
Someone flagged the police over in the commotion.
The officer had a way about himself bathetic to the Jim Crow era.
“Is this girl harassing y‘all fine folk?” The officer asked the man jutting his chin toward Joan.
Joan audibly gasped. She opened her mouth to answer but Bennie’s mother replied first.
“No, sir. My son just had a little accident.”
“Were you here when it happened?” The officer trained a sharp eye on the mother.
His father spoke, “No, officer. She was getting ice cream while I was watching the boy.”
The officer smiled.
“So what did you see happen?”
“Well, she wasn’t paying attention and knocked into my boy. He lost his balance and fell. The bike is damaged and he’s in shock. He might have hit his head.”
The officer adjusted his strap and pulled out a note pad from his pocket. He nodded as he wrote.
Joan got the gumption to speak up, “That’s not true.”
“What are you saying girl? He saw you knock down his boy.”
Joan looked all around mouthing an inaudible prayer.
She’s done this run over 50 times. She was training for an upcoming marathon.
She looked at the bridge lamp posts. No cameras.
The older couple holding hand on the bench feeding the birds. They faced the water and when she approached them last week seemed to be wearing hearing aids. They were unmoved by the drama she was in.
She looked over at the artist that always paints different scenery in this park by the trail.
Joan always loved the water. After her divorce this trail felt numinous. This was her sacred place. She could hardly believe the vicissitude of today’s run.
She looked back at the artist again. He was engrossed in his painting. But he was a YouTube artist. So he always videoed his progress. He liked to do a trick where half his painting was the canvas and the other half was the actual scenery.
Today he was painting the trail opening up becoming the mouth of the park.
“I can prove it.”
Joan began waving frantically to the artist. “Hey” , she shouted.
Someone watching the ordeal from afar near the artist but on the phone point to themselves.
Joan was exasperated. She shook her head “no”. The man looked around and pointed to the artist.
He was completely ingresses in his painting.
The man on the phone tapped the artist and pointed back to Joan. Who then motioned for the artist to come over.
“Is this your proof? He doesn’t seem know he your witness.” The officer mocked her.
The father and mother quietly bickered over their son.
“What’s this about?”, the young man questioned as he finally approached.
He got a good look at Joan.
“Damn. What happened? Are you okay?”
The police officer laughed harder.
“The kid just had an accident and bumped into me”
“Allegedly,” the father talked over Joan.
“Oh that’s crazy.” He empathized but was confused, “why do you want me?”
“I watch your videos so I know about the art trick that you do. Were you filming this general area?”
“Oh yeah. When I’m zoned in I don’t notice the people around me much. And I edit a bunch later.”
“I know- I love this place but your videos always make it look much more calm and peaceful.”
It was kismet that the artist caught everything on camera.
All the rigmarole with the police and the father ended there for Joan.
The boys mother embarrassed vamoosed with her son quickly apologizing to Joan first. She left his father who she apparently broke things off with ages ago.
The artist and Joan exchanged numbers. His name was Drew. He shared his second channel Drawn by Drew and showed Joan a few sketches. She appeared in his catalog a few times.
Drew secretly admired Joan all along. And this terrible incident they finally stuck up a real conversation.
Below is the list of words that inspired this story:
Marathon
Stress
Expression
Account
Vertical
Viable
Confession
Sketch
Harass
Strap
Rigamarole
Gumption
Flummox
Canoodle
Sagacious
Numinous
Crapulous
Bathetic
Kismet
Vicisitude
Vamoose
JustJamei.com 
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