The hot air whistles down my throat, each gasp replenishing my oxygen-starved lungs. My feet slap the pavement, and my mouth gulps in air. My skin feels tight, spread taut across my bones like a drum. My knees and ankles throb at my pounding pace, and my chest aches with the effort to continue.

This is the best time to run.

Jet pavement flies under me, azure sky soars above me, and all around the lush verdure of trees overflowing with growth races past. The hot agony of my constricting lungs is lost to me as I trot along. The air smells bitter, almost metallic, in the wake of last night’s vicious storm, and cool droplets of rain spatter up my sore legs, kicked up by my winged feet. The newborn sun stains the sky with rosy gold highlights. The sky is so clear as to be crystal—there are no clouds, not even remnants on the horizon.

Running is my release; it takes my mind off the troubles of life and fills the gap with relaxation. While I run, I am free from the anxiety, free from the confusion, free from all restrictions. While I run, I can finally let myself think and dwell on the jumbled jungle of my mind.

This is the best time to run.

There’s a test tomorrow in Science class. I dwell on the notion of balancing chemical equations and the matter of elemental bonding until I am certain of them. Spanish has a test too, but I don’t bother to study. Spanish is my easiest class. My other homework for tomorrow is Math and English. Guiltily, I recall my unopened Macbeth at home on the floor, and move on to the next thought.

My jazz cassette pounds in my ears, marred by the harsh cacophony of my anguished breath. I reach a hill and push my legs on up it, despite their painful protests. The music makes me want to break a move right here and now, but I resist the urge, and use the energy to make it up the hill. My mind becomes chaotic from the effort; Spanish verbs—accompanied by jazz melodies and chemical equations—dance through my head like some morbid parade of information. My feet continue on their way, nearly leaving my mind and my body behind at the top of the hill with their contemplations.

This is the best time to run.

That one thought emerges above all the other muddled conceptions of heat, sweat, exhaustion, and Spanish. I love this time to run. It’s so much cooler in the morning than it would be at noon. At noon I would undoubtedly burn or overheat. But now, with a cool wind rustling my hair about me and drying down my sweating body, with the light brilliantly but not painfully off to the left, with the ground sloping down beneath my tired feet, I feel as if I could run forever.

My throat is burning with the intake of breath and its outlet. My lungs hungrily gobble down every gasp, stripping each for its oxygen and exhaling all the rest. My mouth is parched, like a sandy desert baked with sun. I swallow dryly and wince at the next rasping gulp that tears my tender throat. I long for a sip of the water that trickles in a tempting river down the side of the hill.

This is the best time to run.

My legs are flying now, down the hill, stretching, leaping, pounding forever. I will not—cannot—stop. Momentum picks me up and flings me forward, tumbling along, with only my feet slamming into the ground to keep me right side up. The rhythm of my feet is now as fast as the jazz that pummels my ears, and I can’t help putting a little swing in my step as I sprint along.

I round a corner, and see distantly down along the gray curling striped ribbon of the road my little house with its worn brick walls and its chipped blue paint. It seems a rickety house on its very last legs to any passerby, but to me it is solace far more soothing than a church’s sanctuary. My eyes seek refuge in it as I run, and my legs gain speed at the very sight of my haven. In a matter of moments, I slide up the driveway and through the front door. There I halt, finally, and double over, gasping breath, gulping it, swallowing it in a desperate manner and savoring it in my lungs. Each time I breathe my throat burns with raw agony.

This is the best time to run.

I pour out a glass of water, pause for a moment to enjoy the stillness of this view, a clear liquid in a crystalline glass, glistening in the now-streaming sunlight, throwing rainbows and shadows onto all surrounding surfaces, basking in light. The glass seems almost to be on fire with the dancing, streaming sunlight, and in the cup sunbeams cascade into the water. My jazz hits a crescendo of chords. I lift the fiery goblet to my lips. The water sweetly, soothingly, softly glides into my aching throat.

This is the best time to run.