Early Morning Run (Open/Casual)

[JIAO "JO" MAHR]

Jiao tugged on her running shoes, grumbling under her breath once again that her sleep had been so rudely interrupted by the astringent odors pouring in through the open bedroom window of her apartment from the dry cleaner located below. She couldn't really complain though if she tried to look at the positives of where she called home. No need for an alarm clock since they started work sharply at 4 a.m. each day. No need to worry about oversleeping either, regardless of what time she had dragged herself into bed the night before, since the odor wafting in could drive a dead man out of a coffin. The rent had already been low because no one ever seemed to want to stay there for very long, and after having been there for one week, Jiao had managed to negotiate an even lower rent.

What the landlord, however, hadn't known, was that Jiao usually loved the early mornings in the city. The usual bustle of pedestrian traffic was minimal. Well, that wasn't entirely correct. More accurately, the pedestrian traffic was nearly nil in the early hours. She usually only found service and delivery employees out on the streets at this time, those who worked in the background so that those who felt important in their offices could walk around without having their shoes ruined by litter usually left on the streets, could easily purchase their papers with their morning coffee, and could grab a fresh bagel without having to wait for the next batch to come out of the oven.

Stepping out into the street, she heard her name being called from the doorway of the cleaners "Jiao! Zao an, Jiao!" Turning, she saw a small hand waving to her first before she saw the rest of the old woman emerge. ~:I'm sure she stands there waiting for me everyday:~

"Zao an, ayi. Nin hao?" Jiao smiled to the wrinkled face that peaked at her from the doorway as she adjusted the light jacket on her shoulders.

The wrinkles at the corners of the old woman's eyes deepened as she smiled to Jiao, "Wo henhao, xiexie, Jiao."

Jiao's hands dropped and she pushed her keys into her pocket, "Hen bang, ayi. Wo gai zou le." Her other hand moved to indicate further down the street in the direction that she intended to start her run today.

The old woman waved again, her smile a constant as she spoke, "Yihuier jian, Jiao." As she turned from the doorway to go back into the cleaners, Jiao could hear the old woman's reminiscing starting again as words floated past the doorway to the street, "Hai jide neitian... " The rest being cut off as the door finally shut.

Jiao turned in the direction that she had indicated, breathed a sigh of relief and started her jog. Her Mandarin was limited, very limited. And she was sure that her pronunciation was terrible, but for some reason the old woman had taken a liking to her and insisted in speaking Mandarin to her, even though Jiao had once overheard her speaking a very broken English to one of their employees. If the old woman's son hadn't given Jiao a few key phrases and tips early on that would help shorten their conversations, Jiao was sure that she'd end up standing there for easily an hour each morning, nodding her head politely but not understanding a single word of what the old woman was saying.

As she reached the corner, Jiao turned towards the financial district, intending to at least reach the edge of Chinatown before judging if she would turn back or not. With any luck, she would reach it before the sun started to lighten the sky. She allowed the rhythmic sound of her foot falls to fill her head, letting it drown out the song of the city that never slept.

[MEDEA KEKELIDZE]

Sleep was a rare commodity for Medea, and had been even before her move to America. She hated seeing the eyes of her little boys as their life's blood drained from them, and that was what she saw when she closed her eyes at night. Though she did love the screams, the screams of those who had made themselves her enemies... but they kept her awake, jolting her from her sleep hour after hour as though they sounded in the real world, in reality, and not within the sleeping depths of her mind.

Usually, when she was unable to sleep, Medea turned on a light and read, or watched early morning television. But the TV could not hold her interest this day and her reading lamp's bulb had blown; and rather than go to the hassle of changing it now, she opted to leave the chore for later and simply wander around outside for a time. Perhaps there would be a cool, pleasant breeze. She put on a plain, off-white cotton dress and a pair of slippers and set out from her home. It had become her home, at least; really it belonged to a friend of hers, a politician who owned a few homes across the state. She had refused to think of it as a permanent residence, but... though she had the money to move out now, she could not make herself leave. Not yet.

She had been picking up odd jobs contracting for pharmaceutical firms. Her knowledge of medicines and toxins had turned out to be one of the best in the nation, and she found herself quite sought after. She wanted not for money or work. What she sought was peace, solace. Perhaps she would find it on this dark morning, even if it proved fleeting. She locked her front door and began to wander.

Sticking only to streets she knew, her meanderings brought her in the direction of the financial district, where so many of her American contacts worked. Here she could find her way around... in the daytime. At night, dark and slumbering - deceptively - she hardly recognized the area. Soon she was walking according to instinct rather than memory, and the less familiar the buildings became, the more unsettled she began to feel.

There was a figure up ahead, a young lady by the silhouette in the distance. "Excuse me," she called toward the girl. "I'm...." She knew better than to say she was lost, or to ask directions, as that would make her seem as though she was... well, lost. And she was, of course, she had no idea how to find her way around this part of the city, but it was not good to let strangers know that. What could she ask, then? "...Do you know the way to Chinatown from here?"

[JIAO "JO" MAHR]

She hadn't noticed when she'd gone past the edges of Chinatown, so deep in thought had she been, but she had noticed when the sky to the east started to lighten. Imperceptible at first with the lights of the city that hardly ever dimmed, but with each passing minute, just that little bit more noticeable. Jiao was just deciding to herself that she would only run until the end of the city block that she was on when a woman stepped out at the end of the block from one of the intersecting streets.

"Excuse me," The woman called toward Jiao, "I'm...."

And there her words stopped, as though she was either waiting for Jiao to come a little closer to her and acknowledge her, or as if she didn't quite know what she wanted to say next. Jiao started to slow her jog as she approached, noting that the curly haired woman before her didn't look like the normal class of person who she might see at this hour. Was that meant to be part of the deception or was she genuinely lost?

"...Do you know the way to Chinatown from here?"

Jiao decided that it was the latter... and did she hear a faint accent? She slowed to a stop. Well, a semi-stop really since while she wasn't moving forward anymore, she was still moving, her feet taking turns to carry her weight as she jogged on the spot. She first pressed at a button on her watch and then wiped the sleeve of her light jacket across her brow before answering, "I've... just... come... from... there..." the words coming out between breaths as she gradually reduced her movement. She'd heard somewhere before that slowly coming out of exercise was better than stopping suddenly, and she'd been doing that ever since.

"Are you... looking for... a specific place in... Chinatown?" Jiao was slowly regaining her breath, and she rested her hands on her hips as she now went from jogging on one spot to walking, back and forth, between the building and the curb of the pavement.