Boys and girls, buzzing with energy, stutter at the line of cones. Which marks the start of a two-mile race, the first of the season. Tightly-laced shoes flatten the grass as children lean, diagonal, waiting for the gunshot. Except my son. He stands up straight and talks with a friend. His shoes are caked in mud. The gun cracks. Kids sprint. A mess of blue shirts, green, white shirts, yellow, hurling themselves across the lawn. Elbows and knees, a churning whirl of triangles in motion. Between the kids and my kid is a two-foot gap. Now three. Then four yards. Point five miles. My son jogs, face upward. His eyes take in the leaves of oaks and wispy clouds of evening sky. His red shirt bobs like a buoy in a lake.
Mikayla "Mik" Johnson is the winner of the 2024 Utah Original Writing Competition Short Story Collection. Her work has been published in The Colorado Review, Door is a Jar, Segullah, and others. Find her on instagram @mikjohnsonwrites
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