text: I’m walking all the way to Florida. I started in the depths of the night. 3a.m in Kankakee, Illinois and just kept walking. I didn’t use a map. I didn’t have money, a phone, or a change of clothes. I had a knapsack with a few secrets in it. It used to be a backpack, when I used it for school, but since I was going off on an adventure, it became a knapsack. I think I was somewhere in Kentucky when I stopped for food at a gas station. I flirted with the guy behind the counter at the gas station subway until he gave me a sandwich, for free. It was a meatball sub, and it was cold outside so it tasted good. I fell asleep on the bench until another employee woke me up and told me I had to buy something or leave. I asked her for money. She said no. So I got up and left. I hitched a ride. It was 2019, but I hitched a ride. A very large and smelly red headed woman stopped in a sedan, and let me get in. The car smelled rancid, like there was something besides body odor going on. I sat in the back seat because she had a bird cage in the front seat (It was empty). She asked me where I was headed and I told her Disney World. She asked why, and I told her I had family there, in the Epcot Ball. Little did she know, that was a lie. We drove for five hours and she didn’t stop to let me pee when I asked her. I thought about just peeing in the seat because the car smelled bad anyway, but I chickened out. She turned off the highway and drove through a town with a gas station and a motel and a Dairy Queen, and I thought that maybe we were going to Dairy Queen, but she kept on driving. She turned onto a dirt road, and we must have driven for twenty minutes. I didn’t see a car or house the whole time, just lots of fields. She pulled into a driveway, and there I saw it, a decrepit, tiny house that looked like it was actually collapsing. She turned back back to me, gave me a wide smile, and said “Thought I’d fix you a meal!” The orange soda was very refreshing, but the meatloaf didn’t taste right. Still, I scarfed it down. She watched me anxiously and talked about gardening. How to grow tulips. It was really boring, but she seemed into it. I remember wandering what her plans were with that bird cage. She had left it in the car. That was my last thought before I passed out. I woke up in a tiny little wood paneled room with no windows. I assumed it was in the house. There was a blow-up mattress but nothing else. It was extremely hot. I tried to walk out but the door was locked from the outside. She brought me two meals a day, and sat on the floor with her massive legs crossed, and talked about her life. She told me very intricate little stories about going to church, and the flowers she was growing in the backyard, and the day her bird Lenny had died. I begged her to let me go, that I needed to go to Disney World, and my parents and sister were waiting for me there. When I brought up Disney World, she got real quiet, and walked out of the room. It was a sad time for me. She didn’t seem to want to talk about ME, or MY life. She only cared about herself. I counted the days. It was on day fifty-four that I exploded at her. Not physically, just verbally. She was in the middle of talking about a handsome man she had met at church (who WASN’T interested in her at ALL ; I could tell.) when I started screaming, “WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME ALL THESE THINGS?! I DON’T CARE, AND I’M TIRED OF PRETENDING TO CARE!! YOU WON’T EVEN GIVE ME ANY BOOKS OR MAGAZINES, AND YOU NEVER GIVE ME ENOUGH SODA!! I’M ALWAYS THIRSTY! YOU’RE SUCH A BITCH!! I HATE BEING KIDNAPPED BY YOU!!” She got up, moved her big hefty body over to me and held her face an inch away from mine. “Listen, you little”, she began. She never finished. I bit her face so hard that I tore her nose off. I know I did because I could feel the whole damn thing in my mouth. I’ll never forget that feeling. Some of her cheek came off as well. Blood spurted out of her face like six squirt guns at once. Where I summoned this force, I still to this day don’t know. She fell to the floor in shock, and I grabbed the key from her dress pocket, made a rush for the door, and locked her inside. I felt bad about taking her car, and plus I didn’t want to smell it again. So I walked to town. When I got to Dairy Queen the next morning , I tried flirting with the guy at the counter, but it didn’t work because I had blood spatter all over my face and I hadn’t showered in fifty-five days. So I drank water from the bathroom faucet and left. I am still making my way to Disney world. I’m walking on the highway and keeping to myself. I’m paying attention to road signs and such so I don’t get lost. I'm really hungry. My thirty-second birthday is in three weeks. Hopefully I’ll make it there before then. I don’t even have my knapsack full of secrets anymore. That dumb lady took it.