RUN.

I’m standing in a tunnel staring into the light. My shoulders slightly slumped from the weight I’m carrying, my chest tight from the gravity of the moment. I will my right foot forward, and then my left, and then the right again. But I stop.

I’m standing at the mouth of the tunnel now having stepped fully into the light. I shift the weight I’m bearing between my shoulders. My chest readjusts its grip on the tightness it insists on carrying. Again, I will my left foot forward, and then my right.

I’m walking now, being escorted by a person in uniform to a front row seat to my fate. They ask me to lift my shirt, they check my number, what I’m wearing, they make sure I am who I say I am while running a finger down a roster of names. They write a checkmark next to mine. I walk away and the process is repeated with the next in line. The person in uniform occasionally looks up from a worn clipboard to monitor our movements.

I’m handed a tiny block, the only thing I am allowed to possess out here beyond myself. A large clock just outside my periphery begins counting down. It tells me that I have thirty minutes left. Now, twenty-nine. I’m in London at the IAAF World Championships, this competition will begin right on time, so I straighten the bib number I have safety-pinned to the front of my uniform, I ask for help readjusting the one on my back.

My spikes are on, my sweats are off. I take the tiny block I was given by the official and place it at the spot where my approach will begin.

The competition commences.

I’m up. I take a deep breath. I rock my weight backward as I step my right foot behind me. I hinge forward and close my eyes.

“A person is always running”. I hear the voice of one of my former coaches in my head. “You’re either running from something or running toward something, either way you’re running. It’s just best you know which it is.”

I reopened my eyes. I know which it is as I throw my left arm forward with the violence of a boxer’s knockout punch in a championship round. I know which it is. I drive out with the kind of force one can only generate with wrath mixed with flammable desperation. I know which it is as I reach my top speed on the runway.

I’m running for my life.