You Can’t Outrun Death on a Treadmill

I’m not sure why exactly, but I absolutely love running on my treadmill. It’s my favourite thing to do. I have it kept in my room so that I can jump on whenever I want to. Most days it’s all I do. I just run on that thing until I get tired, I take a nap and I get back on it. I’m not ever sure what I’m training for really, but I love that thing. It speeds up when I do, and slows down with me too. It’s unreal. I imagine it’s quite a high-end version of this technology.

I spend a good amount of time eating as well. All that running would take it out you. I eat, get my energy back up, run it off, and do it all again until bedtime. Sometimes I have visitors and I can’t run then but that’s ok. I need to relax sometimes as well. I have all the food and water I need to keep me going in my room, and when that runs out I get it all delivered too, so as to minimise the amount of time I spend away from the treadmill. It’s not the most exciting life I admit, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. The feeling of my legs enduring hours of running is almost spiritual to me. It makes me feel like I’m balanced in the universe. My soul and body feel synchronised when I’m on that treadmill, giving it everything. That feeling subsides dramatically when I need to use the toilet and realise that my toilet’s also in my bedroom, and that’s not ideal in fairness.

For the longest time, I’ve felt that I was destined to run. I felt as though God herself wanted me to run. After all, one day I woke up and the treadmill was there in my room. I still have no idea where it came from. I think I was chosen to run, to run on this treadmill, and be the best runner I can be. It keeps me focused, and I’m quite humbled to know that God chose me to run on this mill of tread, this heavenly conveyor belt. I think that’s why God came and got me in the end. I think that’s why God had me killed, because I had fulfilled my destiny. I had ran the best I could ever run and then she killed me.

I remember it all. I remember the fear of it, mainly. I was running on my treadmill, as always, as fast as I could manage. I was sprinting. It was by far, the fastest I had ever run. Suddenly, there was a huge, massive noise. The loudest noise I had ever heard. It was giant and it was all around me. I was petrified, but I shut my eyes and kept running. Before long, the noise was directly behind me, and it pulled at me, begging me to come toward it. I knew in my heart it was God, yet I kept running. The noise was on top of me and it was causing my treadmill to go faster. It was almost moving faster than I could run. I ran as fast as I could. My legs were numb and sore and then I slipped and fell.

I crashed onto the floor of my room and the noise went from being all around me to being inside me. I was pulled from the floor of my bedroom into the noise and everything went black. The wind tore past my ears. I was terrified as I hurtled through the darkness, with the noise all around me. I was pulled straight backwards for a minute and then suddenly my direction changed and I began to feel dizzy as I went round and round, over and over. I was overwhelmed with terror and panic. The tears wouldn’t pour from my eyes because I was going so fast through the dark. I screamed out to God as loud as I could, but it felt as though no noise was coming from my mouth. There was no air and I was struggling to breathe.

Suddenly, something came from out of the darkness and struck my head below my left ear. The warmth of the wound hit me instantly and I became even more light-headed as the wound gushed in the dark. I whimpered and cried for God one more time as the familiar light-headedness of fainting peaked and my legs felt like jelly, floating beneath me. Just before I passed out, the great noise suddenly stopped, and the force pulling me through the air in circles disappeared. The last thing I remember was falling down and down and then it was over.

Note: When we were children, my mother accidentally hoovered up my brother’s hamster when she was cleaning its cage and it died in the chaos of the vacuum cleaner.