EPTIt is an excerpt from a short story (the rest of it, I feel, is sub-par and not worth sharing) called "A Fraction of a Field."
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Though it had seemed simple before – rudimentary, even – the act of standing there, staring at his challenger yet past his challenger, into the stands and past them, too. Staring at the “good luck” scrawled half-heartedly onto a slightly-used napkin from the bistro he used to frequent.
His love of the act had left him once the line had been crossed They were here now, just outside the line, and so too did he see himself there, waiting with anticipation for the fraction of a second that would be the culmination of his life’s work. He knew what was to come but these meters were his alone to cover. No longer was he the last hope for some failed strategy. He was in front now and everything hinged on his ability to react at impossible speeds in a game of chance wherein nothing could be left to chance.
The sun was at his back now, but it felt cool through the thin polyester and the breeze also felt cool when it came, though it rarely did. The latex stuck to his palm, which laid in the groove that had formed over the previous year. He thought again of the “good luck” written on the napkin that rested on his nightstand. He thought to maybe frame it but decided against it and tried to focus again at the task at hand.
He hadn’t noticed the rain before; it distracted him and made him think of the previous week, sitting outside reading some novel he couldn’t remember. It had rained then, too. It was sunny first, but the clouds came quickly and unexpectedly and he sat until the rain began to fall on the half-cracked asphalt. He stayed and read until the pages could hold no more water and the ink ran together in an unintelligible ink clot that reminded him of the Rorschach tests he had taken that same week.
He thought of his novel which he had never finished and tried to think of the name or the author as he stood, vaguely aware of the silhouettes darting by one another along the line just a few yards ahead. Those before him who were struggling for supremacy suddenly split to either side as one stood alone and leaned forward, his leg extended.
He remembered: the novel was Celine’s Journey to the End of the Night. In that moment that he would later hope would not end he was infallible and the rain no irrelevant and he fell. And there in the rain and dim sun and the ground beneath him unattached, he flew for a moment and he felt the “good luck” napkin in the inside pocket of his three-quarter, padded shorts just before his eternity ended and he fell abruptly to the ground.
His love of the act had left him once the line had been crossed They were here now, just outside the line, and so too did he see himself there, waiting with anticipation for the fraction of a second that would be the culmination of his life’s work. He knew what was to come but these meters were his alone to cover. No longer was he the last hope for some failed strategy. He was in front now and everything hinged on his ability to react at impossible speeds in a game of chance wherein nothing could be left to chance.
The sun was at his back now, but it felt cool through the thin polyester and the breeze also felt cool when it came, though it rarely did. The latex stuck to his palm, which laid in the groove that had formed over the previous year. He thought again of the “good luck” written on the napkin that rested on his nightstand. He thought to maybe frame it but decided against it and tried to focus again at the task at hand.
He hadn’t noticed the rain before; it distracted him and made him think of the previous week, sitting outside reading some novel he couldn’t remember. It had rained then, too. It was sunny first, but the clouds came quickly and unexpectedly and he sat until the rain began to fall on the half-cracked asphalt. He stayed and read until the pages could hold no more water and the ink ran together in an unintelligible ink clot that reminded him of the Rorschach tests he had taken that same week.
He thought of his novel which he had never finished and tried to think of the name or the author as he stood, vaguely aware of the silhouettes darting by one another along the line just a few yards ahead. Those before him who were struggling for supremacy suddenly split to either side as one stood alone and leaned forward, his leg extended.
He remembered: the novel was Celine’s Journey to the End of the Night. In that moment that he would later hope would not end he was infallible and the rain no irrelevant and he fell. And there in the rain and dim sun and the ground beneath him unattached, he flew for a moment and he felt the “good luck” napkin in the inside pocket of his three-quarter, padded shorts just before his eternity ended and he fell abruptly to the ground.
