Another Run For The Karma Collector

Sweating in the middle of a hot June afternoon, he cut through the sprawling concrete jungle with swagger and the playful strong stride of an old college athlete that still knew how to kick up some dust in a pair of kicks when he had some steam to blow off. He usually liked to get out and hit the road running in the morning before the summer sun planted white-hot feverish mirages across the roads, but he'd hit a hiccup early. He'd gotten caught up in returning emails, and the climactic hair-raising chase of keeping a flaky freelance client honest on a fulfilling a paycheck that was coming up on 3 weeks late. Rent was due the next day. So, one aggressive email with a CAPS LOCK themed subject line and an illustrative breakdown of what kind of tarnished reputation said freelance client could hope for later, he was a freshly relieved man waiting on an expedited direct deposit. The money was set to hit his account later in the afternoon. Hell, what started as a bleary-eyed morning of sweating rent with a cold cup of 3-day old coffee over a sour cigarette stub, in a lonesome apartment to the terrible chorus of a thousand leaf blowers outside his apartment had evolved into a day he didn't feel the pressing need to drown in some, any kind of alcohol. Shit man, he'd pivoted off that welcomed response from his terrible freelance client that gave him just enough pennies to pinch together to clear another rent payment; and he'd actually got back outside to get a run in.

This run wasn't like the others. The day was on fire. The roads bubbling. The birdsong of Spring replaced by the pitched cries of waterstarved summer birds just desperate for a cold dip in a belly of cold blue water somewhere. He was coming up on 7 miles and his legs were starting to give. Those strides, once youthful, sure, and sturdy were replaced by the strained stumble of fatigue taking the reins. He remembered he hadn't eaten. Ha! Running off caffeine and nicotine and delrious euphoria in the middle of that blinding summer heat. He could hardly make out the scene rolling into view, as he ran on. Yellow and red and green and silver cars, busses, roaring by him in bright and shiny blurs. He'd seen a few people, but otherwise it was one of those afternoons where you found the city quiet and the folk huddled in the shade, or the air-conditioned comfort of a bar, café, restaurant. He could picture that glass of water slide across the bar. Ice cubes floating at the top of the glass, leaning against one another, embracing in hugs of icy comfort. The clink of another fresh glass poured. The satisfied sighs and relaxed shoulders of another couple customers closing their eyes in pleasure as they felt the cool rush of ice water running down their throat and into their bellies. His mouth was as dry as the road melting the soles of his shoes. But he kept pushing forward. He had a strange fixation with testing the outer limits of his willpower, finding his Wall, and breaking on through to the other side to see what that shit felt like. The Wall he found on these runs sure as hell beat the one he'd left behind.

Yes, in the past he'd chased a different kind of wall. This wall shows up sometime around 2am after a long night of drinking when you can't see straight, but maybe you're not done feeding the jukebox of your stubborn soul another damn drink, and the cigarettes that kept you moving with quick rushes of nicotine-infused stimulation have offered all they have to give. Need something stronger. If only there was a way. He found his way with the powder. Nights of practicing his White Powder Worship behind locked bathroom stall doors, sniffing, snorting, and flying around bars, living rooms, into the piercing glare of a sore 5am sunrise with blow bleeding through his crazed pores...and he found that damn wall. But he flew right over it. He cheated it. Never broke through it. Just got high enough to get his ass over the wall without having to pay for the implications till later. He'd given himself over at points to temporary insanity. Something about the sleepless mania mixed with the potent cocktail of the drugs and enough liquor to send the liver crying for help, put him in an unfiltered headspace prone to a sense of invicibility when the paranoia wasn't screaming too loud from the back of his battered brain. Yes, so there was that wall, and a glimpse at his time playing the game at avoiding it. Eventually, he just got too tired. The recoveries took longer, and the time he spent in the cradle of a coked-out episode only left him with sore teeth, vague nausea, and an empty feeling that he was giving more of himself to the drugs and the booze than they were giving back to him. He decided to pivot, walk away from the powder that kept him out when the bars closed, and at home on his death bed for days after; and turned to the blank page, a bit of the bottle when the time was right, or nothing in the world was and he caved for alcohol's caress, for a night; and of course the running. Those runs gave him a chance to chase the wall, and challenge his own self-imposed limitations. He was always trying to beat himself, and this approach let him do it in a way that didn't leave scars on his mind, body, and soul. Well, sometimes with the body. So, there he was, tearing through a hot summer afternoon in his beat up kicks that were melting against the bubbling pavement, but with a silly half-mad smile on his face like he'd gotten caught up in a good mood.

And a good mood was rare for this guy. The best time to catch him in a good mood was when he'd given himself over to getting lost in the present moment. He'd shifted from finding this good mood in the lost space of a sore 5am sunrise when you're just feeling nothing but an animalistic urge to rail another line, now to the meditative bliss of endorphin-charged runs. And hell with people that say runs feel great. They're full of it. It's the aftermath that feels the great. Specifically their ability to quiet his rampant brain noise, and throw him in the present moment when he had to focus on putting one foot in front of the other, and of course; his case of madness for running toward the limitations, the walls he'd put on himself. On a run at least he could take a crack at peering into the depth of his soul's drive, and remember it, and get something back for the hard-earned effort. His time flying over the other wall never gave him anything back.

He maintained a strange suspicion about those runs, and maybe that's what kept him pushing through the one we started with today. He believed every time he finished the run, found his exhaustion, but did it all to the best of his ability he put a little light back in his soul. He'd done some damage in that chapter of hedonism. Told lies, shied away from accountability, flaked on friendships, and wasted time wandering through the world only thinking about what he could gain from others around him. He'd always assumed he was due for a bone-rattling confrontration with the Karma Collector when his time came; but it hadn't happened yet. So, in the meanwhile, he'd work away on leading a simple enough life of filling the page with words when they came, getting paid, making rent, reflecting and acting on what could help others, drinking when the drunk put wrinkly smiles not bitter tears in his eyes, and running his tired ass off into the hazy summer sunset of another restless day. He wasn't sure what Karma had in store for him, and what that past chapter had put into motion, but he'd at least try to put more of the good stuff, the small personal victories in the bank, before he had to pay his dues. Let's hope he catches the Karma Collector in the middle of one of those good moods too.