Forever

FOREVER

He started to jog slowly. He could see the road ahead and it was
completely deserted, just as he knew it would be. It stretched off to
the horizon but he knew, also, that it carried on further than that. It
had to.
He could feel his heart beating, he controlled it with rhythmic
breathing, keeping the air circulating from his lungs , around his
body, feeding his blood and his muscles, working them at the peak of
their efficiency. He had waited for this day and it was finally
time.
Jogging&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;..jogging&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;.jogging,
it was al so easy, so effortless, so perfect. He continued at this pace
for a few more minutes. He felt the shock of impact as his legs hit the
surface of the road, dissipating as it reached his upper body. He
quickened his pace. The landing shock reduced as his feet carried him
ever so slightly lighter over the ground. He altered the speed of his
breathing to compensate for the extra energy needed but he still felt
calm and completely in control of his mission.
Running&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;running&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;running&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;
His hair was beginning to flow in the draught he was creating, he was
controlling the beat of his heart and it was barely any faster than
walking pace. He settled into running for several more minutes. He
barely noticed the surroundings, it was merely desert and a few
mountains in the distance. He had seen them all before. He did not need
to see them again. He could almost feel the blood pumping into and out
of the muscles in his arms and legs as he continued. The preparation
for today had been extensive, years of hard work and study were about
to pay off. Years of jogging, then running, then sprinting had prepared
him for today. There were no other days. This was the one. A unique
moment in time. A time to achieve that which he once thought to be
impossible. He focused on the road ahead, on the desert heat haze that
changed the surface into a near-liquid barrier on the horizon and knew
that it was indeed a barrier that he wished to break through. Once more
he felt the time was right to inject a degree of extra pace into his
movement.
Faster&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;faster&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;faster&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;
His feet were just skipping over the road surface now. Again he changed
his breathing to compensate and felt the extra oxygen distribute around
his limbs. He kept his head clear of everything except his objective.
Pure single-mindedness for the cause. There was nothing else, anymore.
His eyes narrowed against the dust that blew around him and he felt the
breeze around him, flapping at and swirling round him. Another obstacle
he knew he could beat. He blocked it out of his mind, pushing on
towards the haze that severed the landscape.
He had to push on faster now. He felt that the gear-change was very
near. He needed to time it to perfection, any
moment&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;.now !
Sprint&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;.sprint&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;.sprint&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;.
His feet, which were skipping the surface before, were just brushing it
now. His breathing was deeper and harder but he still kept his heart
beating in a steady, rhythmic fashion. It was ever closer now, he could
sense it. Hot desert dust was filling his nose but he erased any
thought of the discomfort it caused from his mind. To one side the sun
had started to disappear behind the mountains and he felt the breeze
become slightly cooler. It was perfect. The whole thing was coming
together as he had planned. He almost allowed himself a smile but
stopped it from forming. He could not afford a smile or a grimace.
Every bit of oxygenated blood was needed for essential muscles. None
within his face could be used to distract from the maximum effort
required to do this. He felt the pace of the sprint become a regular
pattern, had grown used to it. Ignored any pain that such an enforced
pace should normally have caused. He would not let it happen. As he
settled into the sprint he decided to open up once more - to go faster
than sprint ! To push towards something extraordinary. He pushed and he
achieved.
Quicker&;#8230;&;#8230;.quicker&;#8230;&;#8230;.quicker&;#8230;&;#8230;.
Outside of what the normal human body would accept, faster than normal
physics would allow. His eyes were streaming but he kept his breathing
as regular as possible. His legs and feet, which were skimming the
road, now looked more of a liquid flow across the surface. There was no
perceptible foot-fall, nor was there any air-borne motion. Just a
flow.
He could feel the blood coursing through his body. His heart was
practically an open valve, just allowing it all to course through. The
air supply didn't just seem to come from his open mouth or his nose, it
seemed to inject itself through his skin-pores, finding a more
immediate route to the blood. His surroundings were a brown, red, gold,
yellow and blue blur. The air around him had almost formed into a
shape, but still he needed to go faster.
Ever faster&;#8230;and ever faster&;#8230;and ever faster
He was almost there. Could almost touch that which he wished to
achieve. All the colours around him blurred even more. The separate
colours were now compacted into one continuous hue, of which there was
no description in any spectrum. Real time had ceased to exist and the
road surface had become only semi-solid, almost of the same consistency
as the air around him. He had stopped breathing, as such, now. He had
moved beyond the need for lungs as the pores in his body had adapted
and opened ever larger to allow the atmosphere that surrounded him to
enter his body. His legs had almost reached the same consistency as the
road as they moved ever faster towards the goal, the event that he
hoped would happen soon. As his legs had changed from their normal
solid state, so too, was the rest of his body. He should have felt
immense pain, instead he felt only immense exhilaration. The feelings
that he had were almost beyond description, but so were is
surroundings. There was no longer any desert, no longer any road. It
was just a surreal blur, not solid, not liquid, the atmosphere wasn't
full of oxygen, or carbon dioxide, nor any other component that would
make up the air that he would normally breathe. It was all very much
the same substance that made up the very things that he was now
surrounded by. One more push and he would do it, just one last big
effort&;#8230;&;#8230;
Push..push..push..
It suddenly changed. Although he had been unaware of it at the time
there had been an almost deafening noise around him, a cacophony that
seemed to match the strangeness of his surroundings at the moment
before&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;..this.
The weird flowing uni-colour had vanished. The surface below his feet
was gone. In fact his feet and legs were no longer there, nor for that
matter the rest of his body, that he could see. He was sure, too, that
he wasn't using his eyes any more to witness his surroundings. It was
very dark. Although it wasn't black. He wasn't running anymore, but he
was travelling faster than he had been. A bolt of light that split the
darkness around him. He had reached his goal, the event that he had
striven for had been successful. Around him small points of light were
coming into view and in front of him a deep pink, scarlet and blue
gaseous expanse had appeared and he was heading directly for it. And
suddenly he was inside and through it, out the other side. He was so
relaxed now, so at ease and peaceful, this was it. His achievement.
This was forever.