On A Run by Kimberly Livingston

was right. Really all right, for the first time in the longest time that she could remember.
    When Hannah went back to her room, she ordered room service and jumped in for a quick shower. She had dried and dressed long before the knock arrived on her door. After dinner she tried to write, as she had promised Sheila she would do, but she found that she couldn’t concentrate. She turned on the television, an extremely rare event for her. After one run through the channels she remembered why and turned the set back off. Finally, Hannah picked up the only reading material she had, a copy of one of her books that she was selling downstairs. She opened the cover and began to read.
    “Tash dragged the back of her wrist across her ebony forehead, clearing the sweat that had gathered there. She stared for a moment at the crimson sky, leaving her hand at her temple to lessen the blinding light from the setting sun. The billowing white clouds raced across the aqua sky, like rafts on a raging river. The scent of the drying wheat wafted into Tash’s nostrils, producing both a feeling of passion and exhaustion in her. This was her land. It was a blessing and a burden, but it was hers to bear.”
    “Who reads this garbage?” Hannah wondered, slapping the book closed and staring at the picture on the cover of a gorgeous young black woman with heaving bosom.
    Hannah had learned how to write in school. She had learned the rules of grammar, she knew all the descriptive words, and she could develop compelling characters and subplots and ways to hook readers from the beginning until the end, leaving them wanting more. But Hannah was no more like the characters she wrote about than she was the tourists that were overrunning her town at the moment. Hannah wrote these kinds of novels because they paid the bills and they filled the silence that she had in her home.
    No that wasn’t true. She wrote because she loved to write, though she worried more and more of late that writing would become more of a job than a passion for her.
    Hannah put the book back into her briefcase and walked to the window. She stared out over the avenue below, not focusing on anything really, but letting the blur of the lights and the movement of the people numb her into a kind of calm. She closed the sheers and wandered to her bed, sliding beneath the cool covers without undressing. She lay there, watching the light recede from the day, staring into the room in front of her but focusing on nothing. There was a heaviness that lay over her like a wool blanket on a midwinter night.
    And she slept again. Two nights of uninterrupted sleep was a record for Hannah. So that when she woke up on Sunday and peered out on the sunny day she felt completely relaxed with what she was about to do.
    The routine of the conference morning was the same, and Hannah enjoyed the day’s key note speaker. He was funny and spoke of nothing at all that Hannah was presenting for her break out session.
    Hannah did the exact same lecture to a completely different crowd, and looked around the room more as she spoke this time. Her audience was attentive, hanging on her every word, some taking copious notes about the wisdom they thought she was exuding. It was fun, Hannah decided, to feel like an expert on a topic. And when compared to the novice writers in the room, she was. Despite the numbers of books in the world, a comparative few number of people could say they had written a book, fewer still were lucky enough to have published one and most could never make a living at it. Hannah was overcome by the feeling of gratitude she felt for being blessed to be one of these people. For a moment in time she was amazed at her own incredible life.
    After the talk, she had a greater number of people waiting to have her sign her books. Perhaps it was that people waited for the second day to see who they really wanted to have a keepsake from. Or perhaps it was just Hannah’s disposition for the day that