In Media Res & The Fall
Episode 07:03:2023 - Prompt: Risk
Where Risk took me…
Yesterday, a friend of ours went for a run. It was the day before a five-day race in extreme heat conditions.
A race he has run many times.
He knew the terrain - hilly, rocky. He wasn’t going fast.
Meters from the hotel, he fell on jagged rocks.
People at the terrace café across the street saw it happen, but said they weren’t sure what they saw.
A runner? Then he was gone…
Suddenly, he was up and running across the road into the hotel saying…
“Call a doctor.”
While we were waiting for the ambulance, he asked me to go to his hotel room to get his ID and insurance card from the zipper pocket of his suitcase.
I was taken aback when I entered his room.
Like a still life…
He had laid out everything perfectly for the five race days ahead: shirts, socks, shower shoes, food & nutrition in baggies.
It was the room of someone who had intended to return.
After months of preparation for a challenging event,
Why did he take the risk?
I searched his belongings but could not find his ID.
I called down and asked for someone else to come look. I was being too polite. When his friend arrived, she too felt the weight of the interrupted scene.
There was clearly an intention behind every choice our friend had made in his packing. Everything was in order, yet we couldn’t find the ID and insurance card.
Then it hit me… he has them on him, but he doesn’t remember.
When he first came into the café after the fall, I was facing the opposite direction and someone in front of me suggested I turn around to look at something.
I said, “Are you alright?” He seemed sweaty from a run.
“No,” he said and slithered to the floor.
I saw he had a bloody lip, legs covered in the red smudge of the terrain.
He held up his arm.
“Call an ambulance.”
His right wrist was definitely broken, but he also was in shock.
When we came back down, we found the cards in his pack just as the medics were packing his wrist in ice and leading him out to the ambulance.
I imagined I wouldn’t see him again for a long while, but then he showed up the next morning with his arm bandaged and a smile.
I asked him, “Why do you risk it?”
He said that with the childhood he had, he should have ended up in jail or an institution. He runs extreme races to strip away all of his anger & pain to get back to the little boy he once was…
And to give him an embrace.
(I have permission to share this story. He’s a Reader/Subscriber of TPYL)
YOUR TURN: I spent the weekend scrolling through memories of risk-taking and noticing risks I take every day. I thought about writing them in list form, but my friend’s fall felt urgent. Like that’s what I should write about for risk.
Where does RISK take you? Does it feel like a risk to consider it?
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Happy writing!
A heavy blanket of fatigue wrapped around me as I read into the evening. We’d spent the afternoon running errands, so my weariness did not surprise. But then came the head and body aches. At 8 o’clock, Keith asked, “Do you want to watch a movie or something before bedtime?” “No, I think I’ll just go to bed,” I said. One of our errands that afternoon had been to the pharmacy to get vaccinated for flu and shingles—to lessen the physical risk. The nurse who administered the shots told us the usual reactions: soreness and “meh” feeling for a day or so. People over sixty-five like us get stronger doses, she said. Since 911-worthy allergic reactions tend to be similar—swelling of face and throat, difficulty breathing, fast heartbeat, dizziness—I didn’t bother reading the information sheets until the following morning. Then, in addition to fatigue, muscle pain, and headache, I ticked off shivering, fever, and stomach upset that had troubled me overnight. This will pass. In the meantime, what are my choices? Wallow in self-pity or get on with the day. I got out of bed, let the dogs out, turned on the coffee, and did one little thing then the next then the next. By evening, other than residual soreness in my arm, I was back on track. This experience got me thinking about the emotional risk that writers take. These days, posting anything open to comments can stir up virulent reactions or incite a pile-on, nasty retweet, and sharing with added venom. But not all reactions are negative; some provide helpful feedback. And without feedback, I would probably produce work that was “meh.” As with vaccinations, risking negative feedback is worth the possibility of sore feelings. So, every day, I get out of bed, let the dogs out, turn on the coffee, and write one thing then the next then the next.
Risk was one of the board games my older brother and I played on weekend mornings while my parents slept, setting it up on his bed, he at the head me at the foot, the board between us, the box with pieces against the wall.
When I woke up I would knock twice on my wall, our shared wall, and he would knock twice back. Then I would pad into his room in my feet pajamas and we’d set up the game.
I didn’t really understand Risk. I didn’t get taking over countries or what the little wooden colored cubes represented. But I did love the sound of gently shaking a few of those perfect cubes in my cupped hands. And I followed my brother’s directions well. Somehow we played OK in spite of me not getting it.
My brother lives only four miles away now, 60 years later, but I rarely see him. He says he’s just not very social. Maybe I should risk it, drive over to his house, stand outside, and knock twice on his door. I imagine him opening the door, remembering, smiling, us dusting off the old Risk board, setting out the little cubes.