Pursuits1st Place in the Fiction Writing Contest
|
Issue 18
|
|
We are a thicket of thin, pale extremities. A dense, rolling tangle beating its way down the hill as fast as our fledgling legs and lungs can take us. We’re impossibly young and our hearts full of fear.
The hill is steep and it’s easy to stumble, easy to outrun your legs and find your body suddenly barreling almost as fast, head over heels, cartwheeling amongst the pack, upsetting its strides and toppling others in turn. If you’re lucky you pick yourself up and keep on running, the fear soon driving you back to that penultimate speed where control is again at issue and once more comes the danger of losing your legs. We are naked down to our shorts, and our feet bare. Our bodies, novice yet nimble, can handle most of the falls. But occasional stones jutting from the ground might crack a bone or split a skull. And there are all those sharp elbows and hard, knobby knees to navigate, bony limbs and pointy digits constantly colliding against and ricocheting off one another. Then there’s the simple matter of attrition. A given body can only take so many blows. I take my share. But over time I find myself in the first group. Not that I’m faster than the others, but my build—tall and long-waisted—works to my advantage. And hence my stride is longer than most and yet my center of gravity low enough to more easily maintain balance descending at full speed. Still, I must constantly avoid compatriots tripping in front and beside. Even those behind, because a “roller” can at times—for a few initial instants at least—exceed the velocity of even the fastest of runners. And to be hit from behind often proves a fatal blow. Yet you dare not look back. It is the longest hill. And it drops at the same steep pitch with an occasional dip or swell here or there to further upset your balance. It seems forever that we run like this, all bunched together, an avalanche of virtually interleaving arms and legs. But in time the ranks thin. And where before there are heaving gasps and pumping knees within inches either side of me and everywhere in front nothing but a sea of frantic, white limbs, now I no longer hear the beleaguered breathing or sense the stifled cries of claustrophobic despair. No longer do we run with the constant threat of collision. There is ample space. We in front have hit our stride, the stride of those whose bodies and rhythms perfectly match the descent. The stride, we imagine, of the survivors. How long we descend without incident I cannot say. Again, it seems forever. So long that we fall into a trance of sorts, our eyes focused only upon our own feet or the heels immediately in front of us, our minds on keeping the pace. And so when the hill bottoms out, it comes suddenly and without warning. But even had we seen it coming, the going would be treacherous, so abrupt does that former steep angle pitch to the most banal of horizontals. Once again there’s a falling of bodies, of boys who fail to make the transition, who continue to run down instead of out. Their knees buckle beneath them. Ankles crack and ligaments tear, and once again those who retain their balance must negotiate those who cannot, adding even more to the growing ranks of the fallen. The fortunate who manage to resume the pace do so only momentarily. For quickly interrupting our path snakes a broad, sunken stream into which our unsuspecting momentum hurls us. The change, though a shock, brings a brief exhilaration. A slap that quickens the blood. We welcome the water both to satisfy our thirst and to cool our all-but-spent bodies. Some relax and relish the experience, as if the flight is over. And for them, it is. Others keep on running in place, as if the same mechanics will carry them through the liquid wall. But their progress is slow and labored and ultimately the stream too deep. For these, too, things have ended. Some of us take to swimming. Never pausing to make the transition from stride to stroke. Using our arms to power us as well as our legs. Pushing on under the assumption that what is behind has now invaded the stream, pursuing even more relentlessly. Still, we do not look back. |
RICHARD A. BALLOU is a former executive with a multi-national IT consulting firm who retired from the technology world in his mid-forties to write literary fiction. His stories have appeared in a variety of literary journals and anthologies. Close to a dozen have been finalists or top-three finishers in contests.
|