Biathlon

I run the final length of dirt road and plunge into the corn, crawling, the bubbles I stir up with my outstretched arms and hands streaming over me like dew or sweat or pollen, lisping through broad green tongues, "aren't you claustrophobic? Aren't you tired? Aren't you giving up yet?

I emerge, dripping, breathing hard, trying to huff the strength down into my legs, and run onto the wooded path, the wind whistling through the water in my ears as if my arms are taunt, freshly straight behind a skiboat on a wakeboard.

And now my competitors join me fiercely like a herd of deerflies buzzing around me, biting my back, shrieking in my hair, making my face flush brighter, faster, faster. They follow me, undaunted by hills where they crowd around me thicker, hardly lagging as I once again find myself on the dirt road, the paved road, up the last hill.

On the sidewalk my last tenacious contender, in a burst of extinction, rams against me, laughing at the swinging of my arms at her, but daring not enter behind me into the winners circle of study.