Stephen responded with a hearty and reassuring smile, “I don’t believe it. You’re doing awesome. Are you seeing yourself?”
“Oh, I can see myself alright.” Acting melodramatic, Carrie playfully filled her cheeks with air and made an exaggerated face at Stephen. “What do you think? Look just like a regular old Spartan, huh?”
Stephen released a spirited chuckle. “I really can’t see the difference.” He was immediately interrupted by a painful twitch in his lower back and let out a spontaneous, “Ouch!”
“You alright there? Wanna run together for a little while?”
“I’m okay, thanks. But you know, I think I’ve got something going on that I’ve gotta deal with. So you go on ahead.”
Carrie’s eyes moved beyond her entertaining self deprecation and looked at Stephen with empathy, “Leg cramps?”
“Could be. Could also be extraterrestrial abduction. Not sure yet.”
“Okay, you just hang in there. If the little green men don’t take you then I’m sure you’ll be passing me pretty soon.”
“Not likely, you’re doing great. Keep it up.”
“Alrighty, Mr. Stephen, you just take care of yourself and I’ll see you at the finish line.” Carrie quickened her stride and began exceeding Stephen’s dwindling pace.
As she pulled away, Stephen’s previous suspicions about Carrie’s sister were confirmed. For relief from the rising temperatures, Carrie had tied her lightweight pink pullover around her waist. It exposed her white t-shirt with an oversized picture of a beautiful twenty-something girl smiling for the camera while sitting atop a large stump in an open clearing. Words across the top of the shirt read “FOR AMY” and under the picture were two dates clearly representing the period of her lifespan.
“Go get ‘em, Carrie! You got this!” He yelled out with exhausted abandon.
A jubilant thumb launched into the air above her, and Carrie continued her steady pace into the fading horizon of Stephen’s view.
Mile 22
Stephen suspected at least another quarter mile had passed between his self-diagnostic and the chat with Carrie. It was a small win in a mind that was firing on very few cylinders. He attempted to straighten his back and provide relief to the tender area between his nagging shoulder blades. Instantly, Stephen felt a stabbing twinge above the base of his spine. The sharpness caught him off guard. His eyes darted open and he gasped for breath as if he had jumped into a swimming pool much colder than anticipated. Stephen shifted his weight with each step and attempted to stretch and work out the odd, borderline alarming feeling. Without warning, his legs launched into a revolution against their created purpose. He tried to mentally justify why they should continue their pace but it was a one-sided argument. The debate was rudely interrupted by a severe cramp in his left inner-arm just opposite the elbow. The strain grew and continued until it rose up his sleeve in a sluggish but steady progression.
Stephen was still squirming in pain when something in his back detonated, releasing a wave of nausea that nearly overwhelmed his dignity. He felt the Earth’s gravitational pull increase and his body began to slump over. Stephen responded to the siren song of the road and dropped his gaze into the unknown which rested a few thousand feet below the asphalt’s surface. As if taking the cue from the other body parts, Stephen’s knees came ablaze. Each of his increasingly minuscule steps punished him with an excruciating stripe that cut through the upper quads of both legs. Stephen felt a barrier in his lungs, and he found difficulty breathing. With no accord or deliberate intention, he felt his muscles completely run out of gas. The rotation of his legs slowed to a complete stop and left his obliterated body lingering awkwardly in the middle of the road.
His face went flush and a tingling sensation formed in the base of his jaw. Stephen could feel the rise of bile and felt as though he would hurl at any moment. He attempted to take a deep breath to relieve the sensation but his upper back responded to the initiative with a barrage of cramping sensations. A pounding began in his head that overwhelmed his sense of equilibrium. Nearly losing balance and trying to pucker cool air to his burning lungs, he leaned over in pain. His feet were firmly planted in the ground and he stood still, waiting; not in expectation but simply because he could physically do nothing else.
Hunched over in the locked position, Stephen placed his finger on the other wrist and checked his pulse. Despite having stopped for almost a minute his heart rate had skyrocketed and it didn’t appear to be slowing. He quickly became convinced he was experiencing a heart attack. He wanted to look around for the medic he had seen miles before but when he raised his head it seemed as though the planet dropped off its axis and was spinning uncontrollably. He leaned farther towards the ground and barely kept from collapsing by focused his throbbing eyes on a few small loose rocks of asphalt.
Stephen assessed his situation: he had become extremely weak and dizzy without warning, and the addition of a severe headache had made it all the worse. Panic set in as he realized it wasn’t a heart attack but instead, he was having a stroke. Having learned through his father’s experience, he determined that an emergency review of his physical capabilities was imperative. Still leaning over, he blinked his eyes and wiggled his fingers. They ached but he felt no paralysis settling in. With nothing less than a herculean effort, Stephen erected his back and raised both hands into the air at the same time to test mobility. Successfully performing a test of his physical limitations caused a gentle drop of comfort to come over him at the realization that he was not actually having a stroke. Teased with a small sprinkle of relief accompanying the minor victory, his arms collapsed back onto his knees.
It must be muscular. Touching each of his joints, Stephen tried to determine where the injury had to be located. He had lost all of his strength and it seemed as though every body part had completely shut down. His limbs each felt like jelly and the slightest movement instigated an immediate disorientation which had to be met with outstretched arms to keep from toppling over, but not without consequence. Stretching out his arms to keep from losing his balance only caused more pain and forced him to recoil. The sudden jerk of recoiling would then send a lightning bolt through each of the spinal nerves, in which case he would then have to reach out his arms to catch his balance. It was a horrible cycle of anguish and he was convinced it must have been quite a pathetic sight to any observer. He prayed the race photography union was on strike.
No heart attack, no stroke, no injury. It took a few moments but Stephen was able to reconcile the pain in his brain long enough to figure out he wasn’t about to die. In fact, he realized there wasn’t even going to be enough damage for a sympathy trip to the hospital. When his senses finally regained control over Stephen’s traumatized body he came to the conclusion that he had found himself face to face with what runners typically and quite unaffectionately refer to as “the wall.”
Immobile, confused and quite unsure of how to proceed, he peered at the road ahead, first with speculation and then pure disbelief at his location. With every muscle rebelling, he could only stand and wonder what the protocol was for laying down on the road in the middle of a citywide marathon. A more conscience man with any shred of decorum would have had the courtesy to move his degrading carcass to the side of the road and make way for other runners, walkers, pregnant women pushing strollers, and snails.
Stephen remained still, ignoring all who sped by him, accepting his new role as the stationary road block others would now have to make their way around. They would glare, curse and probably sneer at him. None of which mattered to Stephen because it was only a matter of time before the city’s work crew posted some bright orange cones around him.