Last Connecticut Sky




It's finally here: Moving tomorrow. Fright versus Fortitude. Life flashes. Past errors and triumphs reel in sequence getting to now. Sit and wait. Get up and go. Wait, but consider the beckoning challenges. They taunt and goad. Go, and don't think. "Don't think...Feel. It's like a finger pointing at the moon. Do not concentrate on the finger, or you will miss all of the heavenly glory."

Look up at the sky. It is the same sky you will see a few hundred miles away tomorrow evening, momentous and vast, unsettling and quiet.

Before bed, you will think about running to help fall asleep. The simplicity of it. Remember you were called "Russian Rocket" in Track. Before the gun goes off, you line up, crouch with head down, and wait for the signal. Can't see the finish line. Crowd hushes. Heart beats against chest wall attempting escape, going nowhere. And then it stills. Time slows to pure silence. No more anticipation or worry. This is where you are now. An entire lifetime compresses into the sprint of a few silly meters. Before this, the strides were meticulously rehearsed and locked into a neuromuscular pattern, and you will not notice you're racing until you find yourself floating midway to the end. You will think, "how quickly the time passed." Then, you will have no choice but to continue and finish it. When the race ends, you won't know what happened, or how, but the silence will fade, and you will feel the rush of the hollering crowd and hot red blood erupting from your bounding left ventricle to feed your hungry extremities.

Did you win? Look up at the sky and smile. Doesn't matter. You're asleep now, several hundred miles - a lifetime - away from yesterday.





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