Treadmill

Tread and Mill. There was enough time to think about the logic behind words when running for your life.

Tread came from the treading. From the sheer endless steps he was pumping into the machine. It came from the sound his sneakers made on the hard rubber.

Mill came from the farming. Just like a mill for grain, investing energy to work the harvest. The mill would just go on, move in circles with steady production. Dave felt like he was harvesting himself. His calves burned from the steps he took, almost flying at the high velocity he put on the machine. But he would run until his sneakers lost contact with the rubber, until pain became a constant in his mind. He would run until his body was just the right kind of production.

Dave had always been a fast runner. A fast walker, as it started. Moving past groups of teenagers in school, his speed always quickened. With his head down, his face became unrecognisable, his features a blur behind his fringe. But even his fast steps could not compete with the other guys' long legs.

"Do you have lunch for us?" The deep voices, the kicks they gave. It alone was enough to make Dave run. Run away into the shelter of the boys' restroom, which soon became his place to be. It was then, when Dave learned to run away.

Just like now, as his feet jumped over the beat of his music, forgetting everything behind the blur of his treads.

Back as a kid, he started drawing. Dave was eight when he drew the icons of his dad's bottles, thick with wax from his crayons. The bear on the crystalline bottle full of transparent liquid The pirate on the brown bottle his father liked most. For his dad's birthday, he made a book of them. But Dad only scoffed. Drawing is a girl's hobby, he grumbled and tore the pages apart.

So, Dave ran again. His feet took him to a café in the city, not too close to school or to home. A perfect place to build up his own life. He spent his pocket money on loads of hot chocolate. Sitting at the corner table, he continued his drawing. Moved over to dragons and castles, became a fan of empires after reading Tolkien from the cafés book table.

On the other side of the café, it was mostly the same boy, invested in his schoolwork, as it seemed. But Dave mostly kept his head down, unable to look up and meet the stranger's eyes. The feeling that stirred inside him, by imagining the boy's face alone, was too much to bear.

Years later, when it was all too much to bear, Dave would mix a protein drink and hit the gym, feeling his sweat like a sort of award for his effort. He was independent enough, not having to scrape his pocket money for leisure.

It took a few years for inflation to sweep over the café. Dave, who spend nearly every afternoon there, drooling over his pictures, was hit by it hard enough. His parents thought he did his homework at the school's library and were quite shocked looking at his marks. They did not only shorten his pocket money, but gave him a curfew as well.

Still, Dave knew how to run. But as he saw the stranger there at the table again, Tolkien on his lap, he wanted to run back in an instant.

"I'm sorry, I can't afford another chocolate." He had to tell the waiter. His heart only sank as the guy on the opposite looked up from Tolkien and shoved a 5 over the table. “For you.”

They talked about Tolkien until the sun set. Still, the feeling Dave went home with was one of shame. The guy's face was lasered into his imagination. His laughter lines, his neat eyebrows and the wide smile he gave Dave.

He was no stranger to this feeling. And even though he neglected his school work well enough, he knew about sexuality. About what this feeling meant. Dave was only ten when the daily news informed him and his family about same-sex-marriage. Something so trivial, yet taking years to finally be allowed. It felt like being an abnormality. Dave still remembered how his dad reacted. "As if there are no greater problems in the world." He said, emptying his beer in one huge gulp.

Dave never went to the café again. He started looking at girls instead. The way they looked, the way they behaved. He looked for laughter lines, for eyebrows and smiles and even though he could all of those, the feeling never came back to him.

Still, he asked one of them on a date. As he went to the cinema with Ophelia, he felt nervous again. Not the same way he felt when looking at the eyes of the boy from the café, but maybe it was somewhat similar.

They talked about movies they've seen. As it turned out, Ophelia liked fantasy as well. They shared popcorn and sat down, still talking, not being able to stop. Was this how it should feel like?

As the film ended, they still stood outside. But every word she said, passed through Dave's ears like wind. His thoughts spiralled over how to behave. What is expected of a guy in that situation. Should he take her hand? His body reacted with a shiver.

As she went, Ophelia did a small hug, leaving Dave in front of the cinema with a quick "See ya tomorrow."

They never talked again and Dave didn't intend to.

He was, as always, running away. And while he drew boys on paper, people he knew and people he made up, he still thought about liking girls. He yearned for just liking them. It couldn’t be so hard after all.

But still, his body reacted to the guys he saw at PE, to the models advertising for garments on the glass front of the offices, and to everything than what he wanted it to.

Dave had his first beer after meeting Michael.

The guy was a gamer, a skater and almost a drop-out. He lived on the end of the street, alone. He was a runaway, one would say. Left his parents at age sixteen. Dave was sixteen himself at that moment. Soon, Michael became kind of an idol for him. They met at school. Michael had to repeat the year, so he knew nobody and therefore took the only seat left, next to Dave.

Since Michael knew nothing about Math, they met after school, hanging around in his flat.

"I'm going to this party on Saturday. Some people from the town. Wanna come?" he asked over the smoke of his cigarette. And Dave, having nothing else to do on a random weekend, accepted without hesitation.

Soon, Dave found himself surrounded by music, smoke and lots of people for the first time ever in his life. With sweaty palms, he took the beer Michael offered and drank the sour drink, trying not to squinch up his face.

"You'll get used to it." Michael just said. "Let's have fun."

Michael had an interesting understanding of fun. They were dancing under fluorescent lights, with drinks in their hands.

Dave felt his body relieving. His arms moving, he tried a little dance, his shame puffing away like the smoke from Michael's vape.

Dave stopped counting his drinks after the fifth. He accepted what strangers gave him, spent the rest of his month's pocket money on more of them. Michael hung around in the corner for most of the time, multiple different girls either on his lap or around his shoulders. They danced in sensual motion, as if taking on the very best of the music, while Dave felt like a fraud, dancing in spasmic movements, not knowing how to find a real rhythm.

The night passed in a second leaving only bits of memories in Dave's mind. He woke up with a dizziness overpowering his body, unable to even stand up. His parents showed up like a thunderstorm, raging with preoccupation. Dave didn't even want to answer them. His head hurt like hell, his limbs felt heavy with lead.

Lightness was what Dave aspired. The feeling of his steps, effortless when working out. Like a well-oiled hinge he wanted to laugh life off of himself.

He asked Michael for another party. It seemed to be the best opportunity to get to know people. Girls, specifically.

And so, he went again. Drank himself to delirium, talked to some people, forgetting their names instantly. His eyes were watering, he was babbling some stuff. Still, the next day, he remembered the night as a success, feeling no trace of shame. He became a real human being with a real life after all.

He kept listening to the stories people told them. Of how many relationships they had, how many people they kissed or did more with already. Like a sponge, he soaked in every detail, looking for patterns of how they achieved all that. But maybe it all came down to being pretty. Michael was very pretty. Dave didn't want to admit it, but obviously, maybe objectively, Michael looked good. And Dave didn't hesitate imagining the things Michael told him he did.

But who was Dave to expect the same for himself? When he looked in a mirror, he saw a scared kid with a lot of acne on his face and a body like a twig. His cheeks were always reddened, his skin bumpy and bloody with small patches. How could he ever be that somewhere his dreams consisted of?

The day he finished school, he swore to change.

There were people from school he still liked to spend time with. And there were even days they went out. Sat on a bench in the park and smoked. Dave could get used to that. Sitting and smoking. He preferred smoking over eating sweets, since they would only increase his acne. He would reject the cookies his mom bought, would order a Coke Zero everywhere he could.

When he started university, he was introduced to the facilities. One of them was the gym. And in this moment, he saw his chance. When he entered, he felt like an imposter. Was he even allowed to wear gym clothes? He knew nothing about the machines and looked nothing like the other people there. Their biceps seemed to burst their shirts, their chest looking as if made of stone. The whole scene gave Dave a feeling of uneasiness and shame, not only making him image being one of them, but being with them as well.

Like a frog, he jumped between machines. Switched the muscle groups he trained, made himself dizzy with pressure for maintaining a streak. His parents wondered why he took it so seriously, but they were always worried, weren't they? No need to be preoccupied.

He fetched protein powder from the supermarket, the cheapest he could find. It tasted no better than his first beer, but was necessary nevertheless. He put in twice as much as the package suggested, gulping his drink down and making a face.

In the evenings, he went for a run. Up until his legs were on fire, he would chase himself over the place. Telling himself he was into EDM, he made himself listen to fast-paced beats, making his feet skip.

As his parents found it too dangerous for him to get sick when running in the winter, he moved over to the treadmill.

His finger was pressed on the faster button, accelerating his speed, until he couldn't hold it anymore. He would run and run. Move from 8 mph to 9, having 10 as his goal, pictured like a gold award around his neck already.

After most of his runs, he had to sit down, trying not to vomit.

Lately, as his parents were asleep already, hunger took possession of him. But since his parents had nothing there's except for bread full of wheat or packages of sweet stuff, which both would feed his acne, he decided on not eating at all. To kill the hunger, he tried drinking a glass of water, tried a second. But his growling stomach wasn't satisfied. So, he moved over to his dad's liquor. He took the brown pirate bottle, which he now identified as Whiskey, and went outside, as far away from food as possible.

The night closed around him like a cloak, making him feel hidden in the dark.

He knew where he was going, without admitting it to himself. The park in the corner was not unknown to him. It was mostly used for secret meetings between same-sex people. Mostly men. As Dave lowered himself on one of the rusty benches still wet from the rain, he noticed his hands shaking. If from alcohol or apprehension, he couldn't identify. The man, who came over slightly afterwards, couldn't be that much older than himself. His hand lay firmly on Dave's tight. And as he asked if they should move over to one of the bushes, Dave nodded.

He almost drowned in the feeling of being wanted. Of being lusted over.

Looking in the mirror, he started to see someone. Not a body anymore, but a whole person.

A person that needed a new lifestyle.

So, now, he was hitting the treadmill again, turning his body into stone and his breath into fire.

His thoughts were rattling, imagining him instead of the man on the bench press, his chest made of steel. Imagining him instead of the fit man on the high bar, doing pull-ups like a master, his body on a level way too high.

His legs were hitting the rubber, making a heavy sound, every step shooting pain up his veins.

As he reached the 10, almost out of breath, his heart beating like crazy, he jumped off, quickly stopping the treadmill.

His vision stayed blurred, sick rising in his chest. Sitting down, he slowly caught his breath. Time for a meal, he thought and packed his stuff. He already trained his arms for almost an hour today.

At home, he mixed protein powder with oat milk. He took twice the amount of powder, poured milk from the carton into his shaker. Undressing from his sweating clothes, he shook the meal and opened the bottle. Sickness climbed up inside him, as he examined the liquid. So, he stood there, in the bathroom, ready for showering, but unable to drink his protein. His hands shook, as he quickly, withholding himself from hesitation, poured the drink into the sink.

Should he try a cookie this afternoon?