The Jog

by Djuana Elkin

February 5^th, 6:34 pm.

The cold is sealing my doom. I’m losing the feeling in my legs, I know it’s over now. All of my energy is leaving me as I lie limp in the grips of death. I know there is nothing left to do. I Let go.

February 5^th, 4:58am.

BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP,BEEP…

I wake up to the piercing screeches of my alarm clock. Time to get ready for the day. I’m too tired to make reasonable decisions. I push my sheets aside and force myself from the bed.

I walk into the bathroom, turning on the light as I enter. My eyes burn as I stumble into the room, blinking franticly to see again. Once my sight returns, I look at myself in the mirror gaging how much energy I’ll have for today. My brown curly hair is all over the place and I seem to have a line across my face from sleeping on my arm for too long. My gray-blue eyes are barely open. I haven’t slept well for the last two weeks. Oh well. I’ll just have to deal.

Time for a morning jog. I pack my bag full of equipment for the day. By the time I finish, it’s bursting at the seams. Grabbing my keys off the table next to the door, I head out of my small apartment.

My jog is short but it accomplishes what I was aiming to do…wake up.

I finish my jog and walk the last block to my apartment. As I walk up the stairs outside my apartment, a large quantity of cold water splashes on me. I scream. I can’t breath it’s so cold!

“Sorry, Darlin’,” yells Diana, my elderly neighbor. She’s holding a watering pot in her hands. “Didn’t see you there.”

“ I’ll live, Diana,” I say. Is it a coincidence that she poured that right when I was walking underneath? I’m probably just being paranoid.

I run up the rest of the stairs to my apartment and go straight into the bathroom. I take a quick shower and go to work.

I run down the stairs again. I jump into my car and turn it on. A blast of cold air comes shooting at me. I had left the air conditioning on. I fumble to try to turn it off so I don’t freeze to death. I pull out of my parking spot and begin driving down the street. This is my routine every morning, but today it seems different. Something’s off and I don’t know what it is.

It’s only six blocks to my work but I like to have my car nearby. I drive the short distance quickly parking in the employee parking lot. I grab my brief case and walk across the street to the coffee shop. I check my phone. My boss usually calls me at this time to tell me I’m late for work. There’s nothing there. I continue toward the coffee shop purchasing my daily medium vanilla latte. After thanking the barista, I go to do my boring job.

I work in a cubicle and basically don’t do anything...ever. I sip my coffee for an hour or so until I finish it or it goes cold. Then I check my email and read long boring documents finding loopholes to get more money for the company. After that I wait for the day to end. The only reason why I keep this job is because it pays well and has amazing health care. Otherwise, I spend nine hours of my life basically doing nothing dire or important.

Suddenly, a red light starts blinking on my office phone. It’s a call from Collin telling me Mr. Laton wants to see me. This is never a good sign. I walk to his office. Spending any amount of time with this man is almost unbearable. He’s a small man with a large ego. His head looks like a bowling ball and he always wears a different sweater-vest to work. Usually they’re a very grotesque shade of green. Today it’s an odd shade of orange, it’s rather revolting.

I knock on his plate glass office door.

“Come in,” he says, turning towards the door in that ‘Doctor Evil’ manner. I cautiously walk in, closing the door quietly behind me. His face is troubled. He looks like he just swallowed a sour grape.

“You wanted to see me?”

“Oh yes. Thank you for coming.” He pauses, furrowing his brow. “We need to talk about your work production.”

“Is there something I’m doing wrong? I’m working on all the documents you asked me to do,” I say rather confused.

“Well I need them done today, and they weren’t on my desk when I walked in this morning, they weren’t there when I came back from lunch, and they’re not here now. Where are my goddamn papers?!” he says loudly and reaches into his desk. I don’t know what he’s reaching for but the look on his face isn’t making me feel safe about what it is. It could be anything. He could be trying to kill me! I stare at him wide-eyed and hold my breath. He pulls out a stack of papers. I let out a large breath and begin to explain myself.

“I’m sorry! I’ve been trying to work on them all week but there’s nothing more I can do without more time. These documents are long and they take time to read through.”

“That’s the thing we don’t have time. Since you couldn’t deliver and you haven’t been delivering for the last few projects, we’re gonna have to let you go.”

His ugly colored sweater-vest is even uglier then it was before. How can he be so cold! I pick up my papers and storm out of the room. Grabbing my few personal belongings from my desk and flee the building.

I get to my car breathing heavily. I didn’t want to get fired like this. I need someone to be here, to help me through this. All of my friends are away and the person I really need isn’t here. I pull out my cell phone. Wiping the tears streaming down my face onto my gray dress which is now splotched with wet marks. I try to calm myself, breathing in and out just like I do at the end of races. I control my thoughts. This can’t be too bad. I hated that job anyways. This could be a new start. I know all my fears and panic will come back later, but I don’t want to deal with it right now. I push all the information I just obtained out of my head. I have so much more I could be worrying about right now. There’s a race this weekend that I just need to win. I need to show myself and everyone else that I can do this. I take a deep breath.

I check the time again. 4:15. Shoot. I’m gonna be late to practice. I pick up my phone again and call Frank, my coach.

“Hello?” I hear his horse voice over the receiver.

“Hey coach, it’s Sandy. I just want to let you know I’m running a little late.”

“Just get here as soon as you can. You’ve missed enough practice this month anyways. You could loose your seat. You know Samantha wants it, and she’ll do anything to get it.”

“Shoot. I know. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Bye.” I hang up the phone.

Revving my engine I quickly escape from the parking lot. I never want to come back here. I speed down the street taking my usual route to practice. I fiddle with my iPod getting some tunes together for my drive to practice. It might calm me down. I turn my attention back to the road and slam on the breaks before hitting the car in front of me.

“FUCK!” I scream at the top of my lungs, slamming my hands against the steering wheel in anger. There’s nothing I can do here, I could sit and swear, but that’s pointless. I continue toward the boat bay.

I turn the corner into our boathouse and park quickly. As I open my door the cold air engulfs me. I run to my trunk to grab the bag of clothes I put together this morning. I run up to the bathroom in the building above our bay quickly changing into appropriate long spandex and a tight shirt so my hands don’t get caught in it as I row. I check my watch. 5:30. Shoot, I’m really late. After getting the rest of my stuff together, I run down the stairs almost tumbling the rest of the way down. I regain my balance, shake it off and continue to practice.

I get outside. Everything’s outside and ready to go, and everyone’s there, looking at me giving me the death stare. I feel like an outcast, like I’ve been left in the cold.

“Okay,” says Frank. “ Who are we missing now?”

I look around to see which one of my friends is missing. Like the last two weeks Molly isn’t there. She told me she had ‘caught a cold’, but I had seen her days before and she was perfectly fine. She was missing practice to check out another team. This was taboo to our team. It was like she didn’t love us anymore. I had tried to talk her out of it, but she didn’t listen. She knows I know and she keeps threatening me, telling me if I tell our coach or any of our team mates she’ll make my life a living hell. That it was none of my business.

I can’t take it anymore!

“Molly’s not here,” I said. “She’s trying to get recruited by another team.”

His face dropped. I regretted those words the minute they left my mouth. What had I done? I just told my coach who I trust with my life that a teammate of mine is betraying the team and him. She should have told him herself. This was not my place.

“I’m sorry,” I say quietly. He glares at me. I can see he’s frustrated with me but also with Sammy.

He pulls out his phone and wildly punches in numbers. “Line-ups are on the board. Sandy you get to take out a single.”

I shudder. “Okay.”

The last time I took out a single I nearly killed myself. Those boats are so small and unbalanced that it is one of the most frightening things you can ever do. The worst part is that you’re alone. You have no one to help you or tell you what your about to hit or where you’re going. It all depends on you.

I sigh. I can’t fight my own coach. I grab a set of lights from the bucket labeled lights. We have to use lights now when we row at night. It’s not too late, but it’s beginning to get dark and the fog is beginning to roll in.

I can hear Frank’s booming voice yelling into his phone. Oh god, Molly’s gonna kill me. Frank angrily hangs up the phone.

“Lets go ladies, we don’t have all night!” he yells.

As I put my oars into my boat, I reach across to put my starboard oar in it’s oarlock. I put too much weight on the outside gunnel. The boat jerks dangerously toward the water. I sit up quickly saving myself from my own doom. After tightening everything I get in and slowly pushing away from the dock. I run my hands through the water. It’s cold, very cold. God, I hope I don’t’ flip.

I row around for a bit, gathering my bearings. Shoot. I think to myself, I forgot my lights. It’s too late for me to go back to get them so I continue paddling around. The rest of the team has finally gotten into their boats and are joining me in the open abyss. Frank joins us in a launch. His boat could crush mine. I hope he’s not too mad at me.

“Alright. Everyone steady state up to the five thousand meter mark.”

This was going to be hard. That long of a piece in this small of a boat was just torture. I wasn’t even ready for this. But I don’t want to complain. Everyone begins to row. My boat is the smallest on the water so I’m left behind. Randy stays with me for a while, but then goes off to coach the other boats.

The fog is really starting to roll in now. It’s getting harder and harder to see, I can barely tell what’s right in front of me…well behind me.

I’m beginning to struggle due to the lack of vision and the tiring of my muscles.

“Frank?” I yell hoping to get his attention. I hear a motor boat coming towards me. “Thanks. I’m having a really hard time here.”

He doesn’t answer. I check my watch to see if practice will be over soon. 6:21. I can feel a wake run through the side of my boat getting my feet a little wet.

“Frank?” I say again. This time the motor roars, I’m confused. I don’t understand what’s going on. I can’t see anything and I barely know where I am. Suddenly I see Molly in a launch coming full speed at my boat. I panic. I don’t know what to do. I try to flee, but she has a determined look in her eye. I’ve seen it before. When we’re at a race and she’s in the opposite boat, I’m in she gives me that look. I have a sinking feeling in my stomach. There’s nothing I can do. Her launch comes colliding with my boat and I’m flug into the water. The ice cold water burns my skin, I can’t get out. My boat is crushed and she’s the only one who can save me from deaths icy grips.

“See what you made me do, bitch! Don’t ever mess with my career again!” she screams and drove her launch away.

I scream for a minute until my lungs began to grow to cold too let breath escape them. The water is cold. It’s closing in on my body, sealing my doom. I’m losing the feeling in my legs, I know it’s over now. All of my energy is leaving me, I lie limp in the grips of death. I know there is nothing left to do. I Let go.