Invisible Ink

Running Matters

As we run, our footsteps write stories in invisible ink. Each day, we toil at our craft, leaving words on the pavement like lemon juice on white paper. We run past all the others, and all the others stare at us through their windows: of their cars, of their view from the corner booth, of their homes. They stare at us like we are pecking at typewriters with no paper loaded. They think, “Why are they always out pinging at the keys when nothing is ever written?” At intersections, they honk at us like we are rambling imbiciles. They run over the words we leave in the crosswalks. They drive and own the asphalt. We run with a whisper and remember everything.

Our feet cover our neighborhoods in invisible ink. Our legs save the manuscripts. We write, daily, whether it’s with the voice of the early Saturday gloom of the villain or the bright Thursday afternoon triumph of the hero. We write scenes outside on any surface we can lay our feet on. Our ink is spilled on highway overpasses and in low trail mud. We write on both sides of the page and in to the margins. When we get done writing, we write some more. Our words do not appear through the windows of your feeds. If our words do not bubble up through the fish bowl of your apps, it is because our words are written outside in invisible ink. We keep the stories in our legs like scrolls.

Then, on race day, we unfurl our scrolls, and the pavement eats our glory like Ezekiel tasted the scrolls from God. On race day, they will look out their windows to see our invisible ink brought in to the proper light, where the words of our footsteps become the novels of our toil.