I am running continuously into the abyss, panting, without any light at the end of the road. I look to my right, the dust stings my eyes. The moonlight gives me enough vision to remind me that I am running in a desert. In the far distance I see a dull red light, a rich Emirati must be surfing the dunes with his jeep. I look down at my feet. The hard footing look like hardened chalk, peeking its existence amidst the sand.
Focus. If I accidentally run on the sand, all my energy will be swallowed and the tiny grains will pull me back into a face plant.
Once I fall, I can never get back up again.
The idea drowns me, 'If I fall, I can never get back again'.
"You can't do this."
"You were always last in the mile run. "
"You can't. "
"Just give in."
I swallow my spit. My throat feels raspy and stings at every breath.
I remember my bible class from elementary school.
Matthew 4:1-11.
Something about Jesus being tempted by the devil in the desert after 40 days and 40 nights of fasting.
I'm not Christian.
It's always like this, scriptures blare into my mind every time I feel at edge.
I try not to think, just keep at it, one foot at a time.
I hear her loud house slippers, walking towards me and passes me. She must be picking up laundry from the bathroom.
Her loud and almost obnoxious voice bellows, "If you say you cannot do it, you cannot. If you say you can, you can. So watch what you say."
Her opinion was always rooted in common sense. Simplified and amplified into her Oriental language.
A beaming headlight blinds me. I can't see the thin trail of white chalkish speckles that guided me. I'm lost, I can't even see my fingertips. The lights swallows me whole and I slip into the sand.
My toe feels numb, a gnarly dark finger wraps around my ankle.
Then another and another finger.
It's slow but definite action sends shivers down my spine.
My foot is being pulled down, the devil is pulling me.
Oxygen plunged out of my lungs, the air around me suddenly tasted like the dried chilis my grandmother would fry.
I could almost see her wearing her goggles and fanning her face in the heat. She sat on a wooden stool, mixing the concoction all the while coughing her lungs out.
It was almost comical. And I matched her airy coughs.
The devil let go.
The car zoomed past me leaving a smoke of sand that made me tear up.
My vision blurred with sand and tears.
A silhouette.
It nonchalantly passed me.
I couldn't see it, but a part of me knew that it looked back at me and kept running.
