Sweat paws at my temples, footfalls foaming the dusty track. The stadium lights catch static pollen and if I squint, I get a sense of the blue dusk darkening beyond the horse track bleachers. It’s a small town and a short jog from Saturday service. I’d slipped out of my button-up, felt my way through the humid stables, and, in the first few sprints, swallowed the gist of my bleeding nose. I close my eyes to get the full extent of fizzy tendons. Icy hands. Blistering heels. Again and again, the pain equalizes.

At last, thinking it’s about time they filter into the night to find me, my pace stammers to a halt. I blink at the vastness of it, this track like a tilled field, and at my aloneness.

I heave my way up the bleachers to the tightest, darkest corner I can find. My bulging veins, catching shine and shadow as I ascend, fill me with the same terror as self-abuse and I collapse onto a bench, suddenly grim and aching. The track seems smaller from a safe distance. The sky, cloud-streaked and looming.

It’s as though they appear mid-blink. Two apparitions approach the seats beneath the bleachers, orbiting towards each other like some elastic game of tug-of-war. Their voices quiver, unclear in the vastness until they get closer. I poke my nose over the railing. Something drops like a dark pebble onto his t-shirt before I lurch backwards. Soft like salve, the blood glides down my neck. I clench at my nose, breathing hot into my palm, and stare down at them.  

“What do you want?” Her wet hair slaps at her collarbones in the wind. Backlit, the pale fuzz of her arms stands electric and she gestures as though beckoning a choir. They toe the pavement, step nearer, parry themselves away. His molars squeak working on a piece of gum. I catch an eye-glint through trembling brows. He knows what he wants. She knows what he wants. It’s like a dance, like a rigged race. Closer now to my look-out, they fold themselves into the shadows and grasp for one another. I sense their deflating goosebumps and watch their roaming, indiscernible hands. 

Slumped against the railing, jaw lax, blood, a scarlet thread through my clasped fingers, spills upon them like dark, disgusting rain.

“Who–?” I’m caught in the flame of upwards eyes.

The awareness of my body’s presence is more inconsolable than being backhanded into church pews. Head down, descending the screeching metal steps, I cradle my warm blood. And as I enter the night, I imagine myself a broken-down racehorse fleeing from the gun.