Runnin’ Down A Dream

I am running faster than I ever have in my entire life, and not a sound, not a whisper around me… A very familiar darkness envelops the street, as I am racing down to the next corner, not even breathing hard, trying to figure out how I am able to achieve this unprecedented speed and consistency… I see the traffic light up ahead, furiously blinking its way closer and closer to me, as I prepare to make a left turn onto the side street.  Only, when I get to the corner, the street is not there….

Instead, I am staring at a brick wall, perfect in its shape and accurate in formation.  I’ve never seen it there before, and it couldn’t have come up in just one day…. Where am I?!  Deep inside, I am stunned, and yet it takes a little more than a miracle like this one to truly shock me.  And so I run to the next intersection, to the next blinking red light, as it really doesn’t make a difference where I make my left turn, I can still get to the same finish line eventually…  What on earth!?

The same, identical, perfectly-designed brick wall is on my left again, as I get to the next street corner!  This is too much, this just can’t be, what’s going on here?!  Unlike myself, and contrary to my own rules, I stop in my tracks, shocked to the core… I have run this route for months, years actually now, and there supposed to be streets crossing each of those spots, there cannot possibly be brick walls there on these intersections…I must be losing my mind, entirely this time!

As I am only a couple of miles away from home, I start to turn around to walk back, the running part is finished for the day, too confused to concentrate on anything.  Smash!!  I turn around to find myself standing in broad daylight, the sun shining right in my face, the street bustling with people and cars, the multitude of sounds deafening me in an instant.  What time is it…. where am I?!  I try to walk forward, but my feet are refusing to move, as if no longer mine, as if I am stuck in a slow sand-trap, unable to move a muscle.  Before I can scream out of frustration, I open my eyes…

… I just overslept again, it’s 5:30 AM, “too late” to run, as I sit up with a terrible, pulsating headache and try to figure out what that dream was all about… I can still get a quick run in, but the upcoming day’s schedule looms over me and won’t let go.  I have been having a lot of mornings like this one lately, psyching myself up for a run the night before, only to wake up “later than necessary” in disappointment.

You can say that this routine has become an obsession to me, the way of life without which I cannot exist.  When I am not up early enough, the whole day gets thrown off schedule, my mood and my attitude are completely upside down.  Don’t give me coffee, give me a running-wakeup!  Bad dreams are just some of the examples of my withdrawal symptoms, I can’t wait to see what will come next.  Intervention, I hope!