The Last Mile

Bree jogged among the sparse group of people that journeyed down the Great Australian Track. She looked as the scenery bypassed her, gravel and an occasional dead-ish shrub. The sun beat mercilessly down onto the cracked earth, and the only sounds in the perfectly-still afternoon air were footsteps and heavy panting. Bree is in a competition to see who would be the newest member of the “National Athletes Team-NAT” but would she make it?

These thoughts echoed through her mind as she came to a halt with the last handful of runners. Bree had been jogging, crawling and practicing all the other things professional atheletes did for weeks, and her blisters had started to get blisters. Each of her limbs seemed stiff as rock, but as Bree ran across the track toward the NAT HQ, she remembered the NAT captain Max, say that the last challenge would be different.

“You’ll do fine,” She mumbled to herself, and fell into a deep sleep.

The incessant ringing of an alarm clock had brought Bree up from her bed and down the corridor, with Max as her lead. Following his commands to keep up, Bree found herself walking towards the athletics track from the day before. However, she heard a sound, a lively rushing noise that had been absent for a long, long time. It was only when she got closer did Bree notice the river, water rushing over the smooth pebbles, curving and bending up and down.

“The person who crosses that river first will joining our team… The only thing you have to use is all the rubbish you have amassed over the competition. That is all,” Max informed.

Bree looked at her pile, and then the rushing rapids. All this time she had thought it was a mere fitness activity, like running, pulling, jumping. Jumping! The idea struck her like a lightning bolt, and Bree hurriedly began, She started tying garbage bags together, and glanced at the sharp rocks downstream. I can’t mess this up, not when I’m so close, Bree told herself, thinking of the arduous track that she had journeyed down. A little water wasn’t going to stop her! After she had nearly 20 metres of ‘garbage bag rope’, Bree strapped it to a tree, and took a deep breath. She had stuffed all her plastic bottles under her cardigan, and presently swung out into the river.

“She’s going to die!” A voice called.

But Bree had firm hold of the rope. She swung out past the middle of the current and beside the bank. His heart jumped with alacrity as she pulled herself into the sunlight, realising she was finally a member of the NAT team.