On Your Mark

Get Set.

GO!

We all heard this when we were children. We stood in a line, looked at our friends or classmates next to us, and prepared to take off running.

We heard the words like a gunshot in the air. We heard them like a whistle. Like a command. Like a promise of a win, of a finish line, of a race.

On your mark.

Bend your knees and touch your fingers to the soft earth. Lift your tale and take a deep breath. Feel every muscle in your body.

Get set.

Look forward. Visualize yourself running. See the finish line. Feel the race about to begin.

GO!

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Airborne

The average mosquito cannot fly far or fast, often staying within several hundred feet of where they were hatched.

 

Airborne travel is my family’s love language but it seemed to fissure and break as I stepped on the cross Atlantic flight. I could smell every meal, the packaged cookies like an off-brand Christmas and the bitter coffee a reminder that my eyes sagged. The meat made my jaw tired and the rice tickled my teeth. The air was thin and each breath made my throat tighten. I started watching the horror film, It just as the plane reached the Atlantic. Pennywise, with a drooping smile, sharp teeth, and a lazy eye, morphed to fit the child’s biggest fear, a walking infection, a burnt corpse, a headless body. I wondered what he would become for me. But then I knew he could not become my biggest fear. A small mosquito already had.