On a night like so many others, Celestina ventured out into the darkness on one of her nightly runs. She ran with a pocket knife and a tiny music player in her sports bra and headphones over her ears.
     The music felt totally different when played outside at night. The outside world felt like a stage being lit up by a glittering orchestra of sound with a dazzling ceiling of stars looking down over it. That's why she spent so much time downloading songs from the internet and going through the tedious task of dragging the files into her mp3 player.
     Celestina's father was never happy about her running after dark, so she would close the door of her bedroom to make it look as if she were in there and then creep out through the garage door, being careful not to shut it loudly. She also tried to stay in the neighborhood to stay on the safe side.
     She lived on a hill and would run around the two blocks on either side of the house, as well as running down the hill and back up it a different way. Sometimes she would run through parts of the military training course near the university. Yes, being out at night was dangerous, but other kids did extreme sports and were not met with the same criticism.
     Tonight she ran down the street that intersected the one that her house was on, around the church, a ways down another street, and turned to run down the hill into the grassy park below. The park didn't have much in it. It had a couple picnic tables and a circular track that went around the grassy field.
"Stay (Far away, so close)" by U2 came on next, as it played through her headphones.
"...Green light, Seven Eleven, you stop in for a pack of cigarettes, you don't smoke, don't even want to, hey now, check your change... "
      This song had an indescribable magical feeling to it, so captivating, and it's lyrics conjured up a very distinctive image in her mind.
      The sprinklers in the field were cycling as she arrived, so she meticulously looked for how to run though the field whilst dodging them.
"...Dressed up like a car crash, your wheels are turning but you're upside down, you say when he hits you, you don't mind, because when he hurts you, you feel alive, is that what it is?... "
     She stopped to look up at the glorious sight of the moon and stars in the dark navy sky. It seemed to perfectly match the feeling of the song.
"Red light, gray morning, you stumble out of a hole in the ground, a vampire or a victim? It depends on who's around... You used to stay in to watch the adverts, you could lip sync to the talk shows..."
     Escaping only slightly wet from the sprinklers, she arrived in the other side of the track. Usually she would run immediately out of the park, but tonight she decided to run a couple laps around the field.
"...And if you look, you look through me, and when you talk, you talk at me, and when I touch you, you don't feel a thing... If I could stay, then the night would give you up... Stay and the day would keep its trust, stay and the night would be enough..."
     The lyrics echoed in her mind.
"Faraway, so close, up with the static and the radio waves,with satellite television you can go anywhere... Miami, New Orleans
London, Belfast and Berlin..."
     In the time that she didn't spend concentrating on her form while she was running she was still fantasizing about Bono.
"...And if you listen I can't call, and if you jump, you just might fall
and if you shout, I'll only hear you..."
     Celestina wondered about life's mysteries. Who controlled when the sprinklers cycled...? Who else was outside right now and why? Why did some people wonder about these things while others didn't even think twice?
     The song went back to its refrain...
"If I could stay then the night would give you up, stay then the day would keep its trust, stay with the demons you drowned, stay with the spirit I found, stay and the night would be enough..."
     One of Celestina's shoe laces came untied, so she stopped to tighten it as the song finished.
"Three o'clock in the morning, it's quiet and there's no one around, just the bang and the clatter, as an angel runs to ground..."
     Celestina started running again.
"...Just the bang and the clatter as an angel hits the ground"
     She finished the run and ran back up the hill to her house, went back in through the pitch-black garage panting and sweating, and put her mp3 player back in its charger.

Authors Note: definitely let me know what you think in the comments section! As usual, thanks for reading!