He came to a skidding halt twenty yards before the finish
line, ten yards before the final hurdle. It stood midway
between all he could ever, all he had ever hoped for, and
where he now stood. He could see it all from here.
He could feel it.
He could taste it.
He took a moment, kneeling down to catch his breath and his
thoughts, to prepare completely for what was now to come -
when he would take those last running steps and arrive,
finally, at his destination.
Still kneeling, he raised his head to observe his victory in
the offing, to complete his acknowledgement, and really
noticed the obstacle before him for the first time.
He'd passed so many of it's kind on the long, difficult run,
that he'd come to accept them without much thought: jumping
them in his stride as his focus grew and grew until it
became everything - no less.
And the cuts, the bruises, the scrapes, the blood - they too
fell behind, unnoticed, irrelevant to his purpose.
But now that he had inadvertently broken the trance that had
brought him this far, the hurts were catching up with him,
and he slumped down in pain and weakness - and the hurdle
seemed to grow imperceptibly. Now, all the details of the
seemingly unremarkable object suddenly filled his vision.
The wires, the barbs, the sharp tooth-like protrusions, and
the foul, oil dripping, reeking splendor of the sum of all
these parts.
He sat there, eyes darting back and forth between the black,
menacing barrier and the pinpricks of his golden essence,
his purpose, twinkling like stars amidst the darkness of
it's churning parts.
At that moment he wept, and a single teardrop fell from his
eye - for at that moment, unacknowledged, somewhere in the
bowels of his soul, a bitter knowing had formed.
Somewhere down there, he knew he had just lost.
Suddenly, he jumped to his feet, kicking up a little cloud
of dust, and began measuring his newfound opponent. Eyes
burning, his mouth a tight line, he reached out clumsily to
scoop up the concentrated confidence that had spurred him on
this far - but eluded him now. He knew now the stinging
barbs in his flesh, the bleeding cuts weakening him more
with every passing heartbeat, the clotted wounds pregnant
and weeping with infection - all these shortened his reach.
He began pacing back and forth before the obstacle, psyching
himself up, clenching and unclenching his lean, ropy arms -
and the thing just sat there, little sharp parts of it
whirling mechanically, malevolently, and waited. He could
feel it's presence pushing him steadily downward, as if his
spirits had been weighted with lead and were slowly drowning
in the quagmire of his doubt.
The more he tried to ground himself in the warm assurance of
his prize - the more he felt pierced by the chilling menace
radiating, with a confidence near belligerence, from that
which would stand in his way.
More and more disheartened by the moment, his tunnel vision
finally faltered, and for the first time since the event
began he became aware of the spectators surrounding him.
Their wild cheering roar, having blended with the rush of
blood in his ears, had also been shunned by his
consciousness in favor of a single, eclipsing purpose now
all but forgotten.
He was disoriented by this at first, but slowly, digesting
this new information, he began to reassess his predicament.
They were cheering for him, it being a home crowd and this
his home, some had even come out just to see him win.
And it dawned on him.
Like an amnesiac cured suddenly by another, harder blow, he
reeled as he was abandoned by the last vestiges of his
illusory, survivalist state.
His besting of the horrid, wheezing contraption, and
crossing of the short distance remaining, and finish - was
his wild admirers sole purpose at this moment in time.
They existed for this.
And now, feeling their energy surging through his deepest
core, the final, horrid understanding came to him. Not with
a bang, nor fanfare - but simply appearing plainly and
introducing itself in a tone somehow shattering in it's
blandness.
He was not, nor had he ever been anything but a function of
their will. Willingly, diligently existing as a means to
their desire - nothing more.
And - like any being confronted suddenly with it's essence -
and lacking the essential strength nessecary to survive the
confrontation - he quietly fell apart.
Dimly, amid disjointed, sorrowful perusals of memories of
his training, steeped in ignorant bliss, he realizes that
the crowd must be thinking that he had stopped, sensing his
confident lead on the track over the opponents as well as
his lead on the clock over the last record, to collect
himself , and in triumph give them a show as well.
It was this dilapidated intuition that moved him now blankly
on.
He backed off a bit, ran, jumped the hurdle, and with his
last remaining strength - crossed the finish line.
And the crowd went berserk, and the venue did thunder with
their ecstasy.
His purpose fulfilled, he dropped flat on the ground, his
body motionless, his soul imploded by the vacuum at it's
core.
The crowd, lost in celebration, failed to notice.