The running will always run dry in the end of course. The running always runs dry in the end but that doesn’t put us off any. We’re still big fans. I’m a big fan of running – it’ll get you out of the danger zone faster than most other things. Oh yes. But it’ll run out in the end all the same. It always does, you see. It runs out and then where are you? Answer me that if you can. If you dare. It runs out in the end and when it does – well, you don’t need me to tell you what happens then! It’s good while it lasts that’s for sure but then before you know it you’re caught and there’s nothing you can do about it. “When you’re afraid of the bad thing happening,” I wondered out loud, “is that a bad thing?” I was worried, you see. I was worried but I had forgotten what I was worried about. My legs were running all by themselves, they were running in a dream but it was a dream that wasn’t really happening. My legs were running and running – it was a kind of stupid and meaningless activity, really – but at the same time I knew that the dream wasn’t true. “The dream isn’t happening,” I told myself, but I wasn’t convincing anyone. It was impossible for me to do anything apart from tell lies, I realised. Only, strictly speaking, that wasn’t actually true. Not true at all, in fact. In the background I was aware of my legs pumping away mechanically and it was if they didn’t belong to me at all. I’m running away from the truth, you see. The truth is a horror to me – I’m fleeing from a truth too terrible to bear! Not ‘a’ truth but ‘THE’ truth, you understand. A sudden switch to multi-screen produces ten thousand images of my disembodied legs running forever in a frantic eternal loop. “This is it”, I thought, “at last I have experienced the ultimate revelation of samsaric existence!” On another level however I knew I was only lying to myself again, the same as I always do. Lying like a jackass, lying like a totally out-of-control fool. Lying is all I ever do these days and by now I have got myself well and truly twisted, as you might imagine. I’m such a twisted person. I’ve got myself tied up in knots of pain and frustration and that’s putting it mildly – I’m writhing horribly like an eel caught on a fishing line, trying desperately to escape only I can’t. Only I’m not such a bad guy really. Not such a bad guy, not such a bad guy. Only a bit bad. Running to beat the band, stuck in a frozen moment, trying to pretend that it isn’t real. I am trying to outrun my own running but I can’t because the running is all there is…
