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If you really want to know when it begins, Matty’s morning run, then it has to start before he sneaks out his back door and jogs across the yard to tramp over the prickly bushes to join the bike path that will lead him to the reserve, so maybe it begins the moment he wakes up with his first thought that he’s lost time and he needs get ready, but how ready, couldn’t he just change and lace up his sneakers and be on his way, maybe for an easy run, but not today because today he’s got a twelve mile progression run and seeing how twelve seems like a full number and progress is good Matty knows better than you that he needs water, solid food, and caffeine, which means he’s going hit toilet before he goes, but he doesn’t have to go through that whole thought process because he prepared for all that the night before, so maybe the run began then when he visualized running easy at first to the reserve then picking up the pace because that’s the point of a progression run, but why would someone visualize such a thing you might ask and that’s not a stupid question because you don’t have all the context of Matty’s life, but if you were on his team then you’d know that coach scheduled this run and Matty likes to run by himself on the weekends, but that doesn’t explain why or get to the beginning because if some middle aged man who peaked high school told you to get up on Saturday morning and run twelve miles starting at eight minutes per mile and cutting down to five, you’d probably go back to sleep on your best day and so you realize that to get the beginning you have to understand what is it about Matty’s background that’s different from yours besides the obvious like his age and his talent and his fortune of being at the right place at the right time because you understand by now that something deeper than his coach or teammates, who are not with him this morning, must be driving him and you might look for answers if you could watch him run in the reserve on the same two mile path that circles the manmade lake where you’d observe Matty’s focus and determination as if on the one hand nothing else is there this morning, the leaves aren’t gold and fire and the hills aren’t picturesque above the lake, and on the other hand you’d observe Matty running with a determination like the world’s greatest runners are bearing down on him like hounds chasing the fox in a race against death or the headless horseman galloping behind Ichabod Crane and you’d know it’s not because someone told Matty to do it, so maybe that motivation came from the time Matty was cut from his high school basketball team or that time someone told him he was slow and had no musical talent or that his mom’s new boyfriend is a jerkstore like all the others and that Matty is still grasping for male acceptance when his gps watch beeps that he ran the last mile at 5:27 at the eight mile mark where he is at once struggling and thriving, searching for meaning and validation just like you do with your art thing because Matty found this running thing and subordinated everything else to it, but that’s beside the point because Matty only cares about running the tenth mile faster than the last and fears the mile after that and he realizes that he could get off the lake path after ten and run the last two back home, since they are downhill, he’ll have a built in progression, but now you know Matty won’t take the easy way just like you bleed for your work and that he’ll finish the run on the path to keep the playing field level and he’ll jog back an extra two miles easy in the rain and so when you drive past a person like Matty who’s shirtless, mud spattered, and looking like a skeleton sealed in body-sized condom and you think maybe that person is on some bad drugs or maybe that person would like a ride home, a warm shower, and a nice cup of herbal tea, now you’ll look at a person like Matty in the rain and think that in their own way they’re just like me.

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DAVE NASH enjoys taking mass transit into the city on rainy Mondays. Dave reads fiction submissions at Five South Magazine and writes stories that can be found in places like Bivouac Magazine and Unstamic.

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