Just One More

A serious case of exercise bulimia.

Heart: Pounding. Blood: Racing. Lungs: Suffocating.

You gasp for air between each step. You’re sure as hell going to lose this weight. There is no slowing, no resting, and definitely no time for a drink.

Thump, thump, thump, your feet sound against the track. The wind through your hair counts as an inspiration to you. If only you could be as thin, and as light as the wind.

To shed the fat that remains under your thick skin, and just float on.

Up ahead, the drinking fountain nears; you cannot remember when you last paused for the relief of the water. Hell, you can’t even remember what lap you’re on.

The sweat drips down your forehead and runs into your eyes.

Burning.

“Just one more lap,” you say. “Just one more,” and you shake it off.

The pace of your music becomes more rapid. Your feet follow.

Faster.

Your breathing increases. Your heart rate continues to soar. The sweat is now trickling in the form of tiny rivers along your body.

Here comes the fountain once again.

“One more lap,” you manage.

You have never felt so inspirited while running before. It is almost as if you can feel the pounds emptying through your pores.

 

Heart: Smarting. Blood: Speeding. Lungs: Excruciating.

With no water, mucous forms in your throat. You try to swallow.

Your legs continue to hammer the mysterious plastic-rubber of the high school track.

You finally approach the fountain again. You ponder it.

Passing.

Maybe.

Gone.

“One,” you wheeze, “more.”

Your feet abruptly give out. You tumble forward to your knees.

Scraping.

You lower your arms speedily to catch yourself, dragging your hands.

Bleeding.

You lay on the ground, nearly comatose, as a bystander rushes over, trailing his overweight dog behind him. “Are you all right?” he asks.

“One…” you whisper.

“One? One what?” Confused he checks your pulse.

“More. Lap.” You shut your eyes as your heart gives its final beats of effort.

Gone.

 

 

Author's Note

I found this in the abyss of my hard drive, reviewed and edited it, but the story is rather old.

Reviews

[S.A Beach]

Once again, very well done. Great use of language, great use of structure, great use of pacing. I really enjoyed this. There's not much of a critique of this piece, it's short and it works well and it has meaning/saying to it with the overall tone. Just one thing though, just a personal thought on the overall structure. I really think you can play around more with the structure for(physical structure, the placing of), "Heart: Pounding. Blood: Racing. Lungs: Suffocating." Not sure if the space works on the comments, but I'll try.

Heart: Pounding.
Blood: Racing.
Lungs: Suffocating.

(Alright, this didn't really work, but what I did was had each on their own line, like it is currently shown, but spaced further down along the line. For example: Blood: Racing is spaced all the way until the end of the "g" in pounding. And lungs: suffocating spaced down to the end of the "g" in racing, creating a diagonal step with the structure, if that makes sense at all.)

I think something like that can work, or maybe just have each one a line of their own, with the option of having it centered on the page, rather than to the left. The possible interpretation of it being centered and nothing else, is that in a vague way it looks like a column, a track, in an abstract way. Otherwise, great job!

[EliLies]

I really, really enjoyed this. It's one of those stories that'll be stuck in my head for a while. I didn't expect the ending the happen the way it did, but you left me impressed. Nice work. :)

[Terri]

its good. it really shows how hard some people work so hard to look super thin. nice usage of words. very descritive, vivid. however, if you are talking realisticly, then (depending on how heavy the person is and how long they have been running) the dying might not be the best thing in the world.