“this is torture. self-inflicted torture of the most unpleasant kind.”
my thoughts were slow in the heat, sluggish to coalesce into coherency. the sun was draining any ability to do much of anything aside from placing one foot in front of the other, to propel forward along the sidewalk.
“just get back to the office. to the car. wherever the air conditioning is.”
my sunglasses slid down my nose, slicked with sweat and unable to hold their place. I was clutching a bottle of cold water and the urge to pour it over my head was so strong I had to physically restrain myself.
“don’t do it. you’ll have to sit at your desk the rest of the day soaking wet.”
“I’m already soaking wet from the sweat, who cares at this point?”
amidst my logy thoughts, the sound of an audiobook in my ears. the measured tones of Kirby Heyborne, reading Stephen King’s very first novel:
They passed across a wooden-slatted bridge. A small brook gurgled its way underneath. Garraty walked close to the railing, and looking over he could see, for just a moment, a distorted image of his own face.
They passed a sign which read LIMESTONE 7 MI. and then under a rippling banner which said LIMESTONE IS PROUD TO WELCOME THE LONG WALKERS. Garraty figured they had to be less than a mile from breaking the record.
somewhere close to the start of summer, a friend had posted a challenge to read or listen to The Long Walk while walking. no mention was made on whether or not we had to maintain a pace of 4 MPH, thank god. we had until September to finish. it sounded like my kind of fun.
reader, it was not fun.
if you’re not familiar with The Long Walk, it’s the story of an annual walking contest, set somewhere in the not-too-distant future. the contest is simple: 100 young men volunteer to walk along US Route 1, which runs from Maine to Florida along the East Coast. warnings are given along the way for falling below pace (4 MPH). three warnings are given - on the fourth, you’re shot dead. the prize for being the last walker is a large sum of money and a prize of anything you want for the rest of your life.
now, combine the thought of this with walking through midwest summer heat. sounds terrible, yeah? not to me, God’s Chosen Idiot.
“I can do this. I love The Long Walk, and walking. what could go wrong?”
fast forward a month, sometime in July. I’m walking around the business park where I work. my leg is cramping, straining to support weight, sweat is pooling in several awkward places and it’s HOT. so hot, the memory of it makes me take off my cardigan as I type this. I have just enough brainpower to form a clear thought:
“this wouldn’t be quite so bad if it was Storm of the Century.”
I love the business park. I love taking walks almost every work day. there’s a lot of wildlife around the office building where I work because it’s nestled back into the trees. we have a lot of squirrels and birds. occasionally we have opossum, raccoons, and deer. sometimes you can even spot coyote, but that’s pretty rare. my favorite guy is a great big wild turkey that likes to hang out at a building down the street. the building has those highly reflective windows, so the turkey spends a lot of time looking at himself. “good for him!,” I think every time I walk by. he’s not been around lately, but a friend assures me that this is normal wild turkey behavior and he should be back in the autumn. another friend, who works nearby, says the turkey is a staple of the business park, and once was seen on top of his favorite building. no one is quite sure how he got up there, because if we’ve learned anything from WKRP in Cincinnati, it’s that turkeys cannot fly.
there’s also a lot of other humans here who apparently like to walk on their lunch breaks as well. there’s a guy who, if we don’t see each other in a long time, will outstretch his arms and say “where’ve you been?” there’s a lady who is almost always eating an apple, but times her bites so she can say hi as I walk past. there’s a young woman who runs and if I’m walking with my coworker, we applaud her as she passes. she’s gracious enough to smile at us every time.
it’s funny. walking is such a simple act, but it’s pretty amazing when you think about it. it’s one of the first big milestones in life for those of us who are able-bodied. it’s built-in transportation. these feet, these legs, they get us from A to B, C, even Z? incredible. a lot of us probably take it for granted. but think about it. it’s a way to connect us from place to place, but also person to person. I know this is a privilege and one I don’t take lightly. to me, it’s a small piece of a larger puzzle. we walk, we smile, we make eye contact, we mouth “hello,” we exchange humanity.
sure, sometimes the walk is an obligation, something to make us feel an accomplishment of movement, or because we are grumpy and need to take a step back, or to check a box that we did more than just sit at a computer all day. but on most days, it’s where I, a single small atom in a molecule bigger than anyone can comprehend, search for my place in this long walk. and most often I discover my place is there, wherever I am at any given time.
and that is a not-unpleasant act whatsoever.
Thanks for the chuckles and snickers. Those bits about walking.. and sweating! Humidity is no joke!