“Take your marks.”
There’s nothing more exhilarating than that phrase. It’s catchy, and you remember it for a long time. It’s short and sweet, so it never overstates or over-complicates. If anything, it’s an understatement for, “Get ready, because you’re going to have an adrenaline rush in a second.” And still- it’s always a surprise. It catches you off-guard, and even if you thought you were ready and tense, you suddenly find yourself wishing you had more time.
Time. It’s everything you want right now. Time is more valuable than gold; more precious than a child. It’s the goal; it’s your goal. Without it, life would not matter, and with it, life is impossible. Time is a Helen of Greece, and wars are fought over her. Time is an elusive treasure, and civilizations are destroyed because of it. And now, at the edge, you have no time.
You crouch. It’s a slow movement, and you feel the silence. It buffets your body like a wave. It makes your brain start to generate noise, to keep you from going crazy. You close your eyes, and try to focus.
The electronic buzz sounds in your ear. You can feel the clock in your head start, and you realize how slowly you move. The crouch becomes a stand, the stand becomes a forward leap, and you hurtle through the air like a bullet. Farther, farther- your outstretched arms brought together far above your head, puncture the water like a shuttle re-entering earth’s atmosphere. The liquid splits around you, and the rest of your body follows, sliding into the hole created by your hands. It closes over your feet, and you make sure there isn’t a body part out of place. You resemble a submarine. Time. It’s of the essence.
Your racing suit clings to you, and you feel nothing but cold. A swimmer in a race cannot control his speed- only how much of it he uses. For now, all that matters are the walls, and the time it takes to go between them. Time. You dolphin-kick as far as you can before heading back up.
Come up for air. Stroke. Breathe. Kick. Dive. Flip. Push. Stroke. Breathe. Endless, endless repetition. And you feel the energy leave as you cut the water, caught forever in a dance of echoes. Time. It drives you on, striving for power. You would wrestle the angels for the authority over time, to make time last forever. But then, forever is gone. You flip and kick into the last length. Try too hard, and you might lose the rhythm. If you lose the rhythm, the dance is gone. Instead, speed up the beat. Make the RPM run higher than the engine in a jet. Cut deeper, and breathe shorter, and stretch longer. Pass the halfway point, and the beat falters. Pass the three-quarter point, and you miss a beat. Pass the flags, and drop the beat altogether, dive under the water, and reach. Touch the wall. Surface. Breathe. Climb out. Victor.
For a moment, despite the wars fought, and the peoples lost, and the empires crippled, and the cities destroyed- you have conquered. Time is defeated. For a moment, it holds no authority over you. You have accepted the challenge, and triumphed. If only for a moment.
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