In. The first breath of crisp air is the trumpet that begins the march. Down the stairs, down the hill, and into the darkness. Descending into the nighttime world where lonely cars carrying lonely drivers cross lonely roads in search of a destination. The traffic lights too lazy to steady themselves, flash their yellow and red faces for the few travelers who pass underneath. The runner pays no mind to these frivolities, these regulations, these reminders of the contained life of cars and offices and classrooms and apartments.
He breathes in, out. In, out. In. The coordinated 1-2, 1-2, tick-tock of his steps on cold, hard cement relay the sound of a one-man army, advancing at steady pace, frosty breath the only mark of his passing. Unencumbered by barricades of pedestrians and columns of vehicles on the march, the sidewalks and intersections cleared of obstruction, he advances.
The stars gradually succumb to the approach of clouds from the west. Thin, wispy clouds, clouds like a child’s tattered blanket overspreading the sky. Whiteness as a reflection. Orange as a reflection. The colors of the contained life aspiring for the heights of heaven, only to be deflected, directed—down, down, up and down, 1-2, tick-tock.
The hills are dark beauties, dappled with specks of orange and white. The runner imbibes the scene, becomes intoxicated with its raw power to absorb thoughts and dreams and hopes and wishes. The sign, white on red brick, beckons him across the river flowing below, the epitome of darkness, shuffling unceasingly to the sea. “Come On Over.”
But the runner issues his own commands. He engages, and accepts the challenge.
The first beads of sweat dot his brow. That old, reliable body heat, the warmth in the stomach moving through the chest, searing the shoulders and neck, flushing the face. A feeling inside, apart from the world and its deflected light, its lonely roads and its contained lives. It’s then he comes into his own; the sheer physicality of his endeavor reminds him that he stands apart, marching to the wind, not the trumpet.
Pain and anger unravel, the tethers by which they kept themselves attached loosen. Sheer physicality—seeping down the neck, through the heart, passing through the belly and past the knees. Past the flexing muscles, the shins, the ankles. It musters in the balls of the feet, the toes, the points at which it can go no lower. 1-2, 1-2, tick-tock. Toe touching sole touching battle-scarred concrete. Contact. It escapes and buries itself, transmits itself into the ground and spreads itself so thin that it becomes imperceptible. The enemy is purged. The runner is lightened. The march continues home, in, out, 1-2, tick-tock.