witch of the undecidable

simpler syrup

they'd carved it up, the field-- split it out into events like the bold white lines on a stadium's track. and us, the racehorses so generously afforded a place at the starting line. (even back then, i knew a little about resenting the lines, painted wall-thick. now? ...well. how else would their horses know where to go?)

...i was pretty good, y'know. even when i was younger, i swept regional competitions, placed near the top at state. i went head-to-head with, by all accounts, a rising star of our generation, and thrashed his ass. by the time i was older, i was invited to a national training camp, for the cream of the crop.

we excelled, of course. all of us shining paragons of our craft. better, i expect, than most ever would be; but it was hardly a sport. not a real one, at any rate. at some point, we aged from teens into people.

we'd won, or we hadn't. no longer virtuous stars, peerless racehorses-- simply young adults, who'd dedicated far too much of their time to meaningless craft. time to run for the fields. make our own lives.

many of our peers (many at camp) idolized them. idolized the ground they walked on. begged for tips, for strategies, for a shortcut: if not to the top, at least higher up the rankings.

but they never really answered. it was a cruel question to ask; an inquiry with no right answer. what could they say? that they'd poured countless hours of work in, long before most of their peers had set foot on the track? that they'd been blessed with Providence, unattainable to mortal hands?

i knew the truth, or a truth, though. it wasn't a burning desire to be the best that had struck their heart; no spurs of failure had ever dug into their flank.

they loved the craft. they enjoyed the work. enough to work at it, day after day, for over a decade of their life.