Shannon woke up on Wednesday. It was 5 AM, as usual. She got out of bed, put on her clothes, went to the bathroom, brushed her teeth, grabbed her pre-packed bag and drove to the gym. At the gym, she went through her routine of stretches, lifting, and breathing exercises with the team. Then she dove into the pool. She swam laps all morning until practice was over and it was time for class. She showered off, changed, ate an apple, a peanut butter power bar, a string cheese, all of which she washed down with an orange smoothie, and walked with a teammate to their 11:30 Econ class. After classes, she consumed a healthy meal, completed her homework, and watched TV for an hour, before falling asleep for the night. And she did the same thing the previous day, and would do the same thing the next day.
On Friday afternoons, after all the swimmers were done with classes, they would meet in the gym to discuss the competition for the weekend, then they’d board the bus if it was an away meet, which it was this particular week. Shannon sat near the front of the bus with the other captains. She didn’t say much as he bus rolled along, she never really said much, period. She listened to her iPod and watched the trees move past her window.
The scenery was really lovely. The bus driver preferred to stay off the highways, it was rumored he was afraid of getting into an accident because his parents died in one when he was young, so the long red vehicle moved along the country roads. Shannon peered out her window; isolated farmhouses interrupted the endless plains that passed beside the bus. The pale tanned grass and brown barren Beech trees moved up and down as the bus drove over hills. Occasionally, Shannon spotted a cow or horse, but the trip was typically uneventful.
At the home school’s city, the team checked into a motel, where they went to sleep early to prepare for the following day. Shannon took Nyquil, because she couldn’t fall asleep.
At the pool, coach gave an inspirational speech to the swimmers, who mostly ignored him. Shannon made mental notes on the facility: the number of people in the crowd, the color of the lines on the bottom of the pool, the brightness of the lights, random things like these. By the time her race was starting, she had filed away all these facts and observations and crouched at the edge of the pool in diving position. As the buzzer sounded, Shannon dove headfirst into the pool.
Every muscle in Shannon’s body had a purpose. Her arms whipped around in the butterfly stroke that was ingrained into her memory. It was an automatic motion that happened beyond her mental control; it was purely physical repetition. She knew the perfect way to pull the water behind her with her hands and slice them forward through the water, only to repeat the action of dragging the water backwards in a circular pattern that propelled her slender body forwards. Her long, sinewy legs flutter kicked, the tips of her feet lashing. She watched the burgundy lines pass underneath her and spotted the girl in the next lane falling behind her. Halfway down the length of the pool, she exploded from the surface to take in a breath, droplets of water splashing outward, her two shoulder blades jutting from her back like dorsal fins, before plummeting back into the over-chlorinated water.
As she neared the end of the race, her intensity and desperation grew. The edge of the pool was just a few kilometers ahead and Shannon exerted every ounce of strength she could muster. Closer, closer; inch by inch; stroke by stroke. And when she felt like the wall was within reach, she made her final stroke, forcing the water backwards. Her biceps burned, her shoulders ached, but she lunged forward, arms and fingers slowly extending to their full length.
The female human heart beats about 75 times per minute meaning; in the single second it took Shannon to hit the wall in her final stroke, her heart beat two times due to its working extra hard to pump the necessary blood through her body as it fully exerted itself. These two “ka-thumps” in her chest, without her knowing, would reverberate throughout the atoms that compose her body, acting almost as a tiny massage to ease the stresses they were receiving from the race. The molecules of the H2O that surrounded her knocked each other backwards like billiards balls lined up in a row, shooting her forwards at their expense. And the tiny air bubbles that trickled out of her nose slowly floated to the surface to escape, but not before Shannon would feel her fingertips graze the tiles on the wall, signaling her victory.
She burst from the water, panting, grasping for breath, as her teammates ran over to congratulate her on her win. They all smiled and patted her on the back as she hoisted her sore body out of the pool.
But Shannon was not thinking about her race.
No, before she won, before the atoms and muscles inside her worked in unison to force her forwards, before she dove into the pool, before she fell asleep the previous night, before the long drive through empty fields past farms and animals, before completing her homework, before her dinner, before her final class, before her 11:30 econ, before morning practice before stretching before she drove to the gym, before she packed her bag, before her teeth were brushed, before she peed, before she put on clothes, before she got out of bed, before she woke up at 5 AM, before Fridaythursdaywednesdaytuesday… she walked to her first class as normal. But on the way a young man came up to talk to her.
“Hey, you dropped this notebook. Your backpack is open,” he said.
“Oh, uh… thanks,” Shannon replied.
“You’re welcome. This might sound a little forward, but I think you’re really beautiful. Would you like to go get some coffee. I’m Ken, by the way,” he said.
“I’m Shannon,” she said. “And I don’t think I can, I’ve got classes.”
“Oh well, that’s fine, maybe some other time.”
Shannon watched him walk away and turned to go to her 11:30 econ, but stopped and yelled after him, “You know what, I think I will have that coffee.”
The handsome young man looked back over his shoulder with a marvelous smile. And Shannon went to coffee, and lunch, and a movie then a small party with him, getting home late with a smug satisfaction as she crawled into bed.
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