Story two: The Run

I always thought I was rubbish at games. I would stand on the fringe of the lax pitch or watch the ball carefully avoid me on the netball court and assume that I hated the cold and wet. That the stupid uniforms were embarrassing, that the bitchiness that seemed to accompany being good at games put me off, that I hated the sadistic PE teacher or that the training involved was simply time consuming and dull. Team games were the worst as I didn’t seem to have a competitive bone in my body. Did people really care how well they could direct a ball around a small patch of ground?

In later life I realised I was paralysed by my competitiveness. I came from a family of overachievers who absorbed new physical and mental skills seemingly by osmosis. I believed that to not immediately be top of the class meant that it was time to move on. I carried labels such as ‘not a runner’ and ‘no eye for a ball’ with a shrug and did not recognise the constant dull craving that I satisfied with food to be a deep need for physical activity.

In my dreams I ran. Whatever form, the middle was always the same. We were visiting friends who lived in a luxurious block of flats on the outskirts of Milan. It was unbearably hot during the day and while the adults dozed my brother and I would sit in the shade with the local kids trying to pick up some words. As soon as the sun went down the sprinklers would come on and we raced through dinner to get back outside again, now with bare feet and the intoxicating feel of sated grass on parched skin.

A boy clapped my brother on the shoulder and ran away. He caught on half a second before me and I was tagged half way through my first stride. I got lucky with someone just coming outside. Some time later we mostly had the measure of each other and as easily the smallest kid there I could see a few people had their eye on me. We had arranged ourselves in a rough circle around the tag, abiding by the unspoken rule of keeping two strides away. The tall boy in the centre was facing the other way and I was keeping half a brain cell on trying to remember everyone’s names. My lapse saw him a stride away and my body had kicked in before I had a single thought.

The earth offered itself to my feet and I ran with no thoughts or ownership of my body until my fingertips and teeth tingled. As the buzz softened I realised I was alone. I risked a thought and then turned my head to see that I was far away and everyone was laughing. The locals mimed me taking off and the look on the boy’s face for some time after. My euphoria lived on in my dreams.