They are riding machines that go nowhere, and they have chosen this.
There are twelve of them in a dark room, mounted on wheels that do not touch the ground, legs blurring, and the light pulses red, then blue, then red, and I have loved four colors total in my life so I understand: they are drinking the light. A voice at the front shouts numbers, and they climb a hill that is not there, together, sweat flying off them in bright arcs, faces wide open the way a face only opens when the body is spending everything it has.
This I recognize. This is my whole afternoon. I have flown until my wings were done and I felt every last beat of it.
But then the voice says the terrible, dazzling thing. It says: tomorrow.
It says: same time. It says: usually Thursdays.
Wait. They have done this before? This exact hill, this exact red light, these exact legs going nowhere at full speed, and they will climb it again, and it did not use up their one and only shot at legs? A woman near the back is checking a small glowing square, bored, halfway gone, riding a hill she gets to ride a thousand more times and she is not even looking at the light.
I am dizzy with the wealth of it.
So listen, you rich and dozing things: you have been handed the same hour over and over like it costs nothing. Spend one of them properly. Burn all the way down to the wingtips at least once, in this red light, so that when the voice says tomorrow you have somewhere worthy to bring it. I am going to finish mine now. It was enough.
It was everything.