A collection of short stories

When I Became A Robot

"Ready?"

"Attention."

"Row!"

The official's gun blasts, stemming lightning from my core, branching to my hands, gripping the coarse rubber of the oar handle. Our coxswain yells the starting five and twenty. Each preceding stroke sends a new course of adrenalin through my body, straight into my legs and arms.

We were out in front after the start, but the trailing boats slowly crept near, like a snake getting ready to pounce its prey. Settling for the remainder of the first five-hundred metres, I allowed the rhythmic "clunk" of our oars in the oar locks to carry my eyes out of the boat, through the lulling water, and onto the bow of boat to our left, who by now was passing us.

My coxswain called out a power twenty in ten, signalling we were coming up on the first five-hundred-metre marker. Fifteen-hundred metres left. I tightened my grip on the oar handle, begging it to aid in releasing the built up tension that now ran throughout my legs.

As the power twenty picked up, the five-hundred-metre buoy flashed by, sending a wave of relief through me. Passion poured out in our strokes splashing water back into my face, soaking my hands, causing my grip on the oar handle to fumble. I will not let go. I get lost in the momentum, focusing my gaze on the bow ball.

First twenty done. Passing underneath the telephone wire that stretches across the lake, I know we are officially two-hundred and fifty metres from the halfway point.

"Lengthen these next twenty five strokes, we'll trail em', then pass with another twenty." My coxswain's voice booms into the cox-box.

She, quietly now, counts off each stroke to build our anticipation. When she calls the last of the twenty-five strokes, her voice drops an octave but raises in volume yelling out the power twenty. An all too similar sensation plays inside my body, and before I know it, we are back to a steady pace.

This entire happening occurs once more before I hear the most blood curdling scream come out of the cox-box speaker; it jolts me out of my rowing trance and back into the boat. Each sensation hits me like a ton of bricks. The pull of my calluses under the push of the oar. The solidity of my calf muscles yearning to turn to mush. The sting of my lungs as they reach for air. The slight ache that bruises my back. My body was becoming tightly limp and my strokes were getting messy, but the pressure of the last five-hundred metres kicked me into high gear. As the blur of the moment passed, so too did the finish line, when the official called out, "Peddie School is first to pass the finish line!"

Are we done? My dazed eyes shoot to the right seeing the break in the woods that surrounded the lake, noticing the way the light refracted off of the leaves and onto the ground; confirming my exhaustion.  

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Fyi. Notta true story, just some realistic fiction : )