The Record

Darren Danas is a world Olympian sprint record holder who embarks on a spiritual quest after being accused of taking performance enhancing drugs.

The man approaches the white line, age wearies his tired face and yet he still feels he has to do this. He has to run this last race, if not to show his unsupportive father that he can amount to something, if not for his dead mother, than he must do it for himself. For Darren Danas, world sprint champion and record holder, he had to do it; he had to prove that he could do this.

Over and over, Darren repeated to himself “I can do this”. This constant reassurance was all that had kept Darren from forfeiting this race. Nevertheless, there was more than just the championship on the line. Darren had also his pride and dignity at stake here. Not two weeks ago, Darren remembered, officials had accused him of taking performance-enhancing drugs and had stripped his championship title from him. The newspapers screamed with headlines, some accused him of cheating, others declared his innocence while still others did not even mention his case. Even though Darren was innocent, not everyone believed him. His father certainly did not – his father did not care what he did and for this, Darren hated him.

It was only five hundred metres but to Darren, it looked like a thousand as he surveyed the track ahead of him. Either the other athletes were not nervous, or they were very good at hiding their nerves, Darren thought as he readied himself by doing his warm up exercises. Time seemed to creep by slowly as Darren waited anxiously for the moment when he would be required to run the race of his life. Finally, though, the whistle blew out for him and the other athletes to take their marks. Darren approached the line praying silently to a God he did not believe in, praying that his legs would hold out. The ages had not been kind to Darren and over time, his legs started to show signs of wear. Sam, his manager, had pleaded with Darren not to run. He knew as well as Darren, that too much stress and the tendons in his legs would snap, he would be paralysed, never to walk again. However, Darren could only take this chance, he was not going to listen to anybody who tried to talk him out of this race, and he had to run this race.

Taking a final look at the ominous white line that looked so hard to cross, seemingly so insignificant and yet it meant so much to Darren. This would be the threshold he could never cross; this line represented everything he had been so afraid to admit, afraid to say – this line was his own emotions crossing this line meant facing reality. Now, Darren was finally ready to cross it, he was ready to face his inner demons ready to overcome his self pity and meet it head on.

There was a loud bang, though to Darren it was barely audible as the roaring of his thoughts clouded his hearing, and with an immense effort, Darren pulled away from the starting blocks and crossed that white line, the effect was instant, that first step was merely a test, and he had passed. His sight blinded at once, by what Darren once refused to believe. Time seemed to slow down; every step he took was a challenge, every challenge a different demon to battle. In reality, each step was a step closer to his target, the white line at the other end of the track, the one he hoped to cross first.

Darren could feel the pressure exerted by every step, he felt the muscles and sinuous tissue straining, pulling, and threatening to collapse from under him, refusing to carry his weight any more. Still, he continued on never stopping, never slowing down, and never conceding defeat. The crowd’s shouts and cheering were no more than a distant murmur as Darren focussed everything he had on making the distance. Sweat was now running off his face in a constant stream, dripping off his face and onto his straining legs. He was nearly there, two hundred and fifty metres, his legs started to waver threateningly, two hundred metres, the wavering turned into shaking like a piece of bamboo holding up a heavy object.

Suddenly with a hundred and fifty metres to go, it happened, what had been threatening to happen since the start of the race – his muscles gave way and he stumbled. The crowd roared in compassion in the background a commentary that had been running since the beginning of the race suddenly became clear “Australian Darren Danas is down” the commentator reported. This was it, a side of him thought, the end you’re not going to make it. Suddenly out of the depths of a seemingly bleak, demise another voice rose, stronger than the sinister one No it is not it said, you can do this you can win! Remarkably, this voice had an influence on Darren as no other influence ever had, he forced himself to run despite the pain now consuming his body, and he was not going to give in this easily, he was not going to give his father the satisfaction of failing yet again.

Though the pain was overwhelming, Darren still kept on running, he was in the lead he was winning, the white line of his unconscious emotions loomed ever nearer. It was now fifty metres to the finish line. He did not know how long his legs would hold, but he pushed himself beyond his limits, sweat now pouring off his body as ran. He was nearly there, it was now ten metres to the end, five, almost there, the last five metres seemed so far away, he would never make it and the sinister voice rose up out of the suppressed darkness to reign once again. Ignoring this Darren still ran, but his legs could no longer hold him and his right leg, the one that had burst the muscles stopped responding. This loss of feeling was all it took for Darren to finally fall, he tripped over his now limp leg and flew through the air. Even this flight seemed to take forever, all his emotions welled up he was suddenly flying through an endless space, and suddenly Darren was jolted back to reality as his body hit the ground with an ominous ‘Thud’ only to bounce back up again.

The second landing sent him rolling; vaguely he caught sight of something white – the line. He had crossed the threshold, he had made it – but at what price? He could not feel either of his legs now, he could not move them, instead Darren just lay there, face down in the dust as the paramedics rushed over him and the other athletes ran past him. Then, Darren lost consciousness he re-awoke in the back of an ambulance as the paramedics rushed him to hospital, at first, Darren did not know what had happened… why couldn’t he feel his legs? Why couldn’t he move them? Then it all came flooding back, the race, the thoughts, and the emotions, such was the return of the powerful emotions he had felt earlier that he could not stop the single solitary tear that traced a pattern down his dust-covered face. One of the paramedics noticed his return to consciousness and went to comfort Darren “It’s gonna be OK, we’re taking you to the hospital now, we’ll get you fixed up in no time” but he did not sound too convincing, Darren knew as well as the paramedic that there was no chance he would ever recover. A wave of nausea came over Darren before a wave of strange tiredness replaced it. Darren embraced this strange tiredness and soon he was floating around in the endless black space of before.

When he finally came to again it was to hear the doctor talking to Sam about Darren’s current condition. “I’m afraid it’s bad news Mr. Tinas, Darren has torn all the cartilages in his legs, made worse, no doubt by the fall he took. Darren will never run again, he will never walk again for that matter. One of our nurses will help you with the paperwork, but we would like to keep him here overnight for observation.”

He had done it, Darren had finished the race, but in the process, he had also rendered his legs useless. He was never going to walk again; his life was over, as he knew it and the sinister voice spoke up once again, cést la vie, it sneered, cést la vie.