from the shadows

Six minutes at the check mark, dim light enough to expose hidden numbers on watch from the dark. The telephone pole with light mounted upon it is at the corner of Essex and Stillwater and marks the five minute fifteen second spot of a run, always. O.k. sometimes the watch gets there at ten or twelve past and even once at four minute fifty-seven, but never more than that has it deviated. Today the watch passes by forty-five seconds later. Newborn legs from a four day running break are definitely not feeble, but somehow part shadow. With the recognition of the lapse in time comes a pair of headlights, car safely away but headlights shining light rearing itself after me, bringing a momentary dark plunger of fear as if legs will dissipate in the light, true shadows after all. The adrenaline, of course, brings the opposite effect and reminds my legs of a stride that is theirs!