I leave the sun and I am the sweat on her forehead, all at once, no crossing between.
They say eight minutes passed on my way here; I was not there for it. I am only ever here, now, this room, low and pulsing, dim except for the one purple bulb I strike and become. Rows of them bent over the wheeled machines, legs blurring, going nowhere, going hard.
I catch the shine on a hundred shoulders and I am those shoulders. I catch the tears in the water bottle and I am the water. I catch the eye of the one in front, wide open, fixed on the clock.
The clock. They keep looking at it. A face with hands that crawl. She looks, and pedals, and looks again, and I do not understand what she is checking. I have heard of the thing she wants, the thing called later, when this ends. They say she is waiting for it. I cannot picture waiting. I have never been anywhere long enough to want out of it.
The one at the front shouts numbers, counts something down. Down toward what? Every second I touch is the only second, complete, arriving. They are grinding themselves toward a finish that I, striking the mirror behind them, have already reached and left.
I am the flash off her wet cheek and I am her open pupil and I am gone, which is the same as saying I am here, which is the only thing I know how to say.