I was thinking.

A reprint, in memoriam, however inadequate:

I was thinking, I'm going to get him. I was thinking, this is going to be the ugliest finish line photo ever taken. I was thinking, that guy is stone cold, a runner. I was thinking this is beautiful. I didn't get him. I took a header across the line and managed to slap his shoulder before I got down on the ground to nurse myself a little.

I think the key to the Kadoorie race is kilometre repetitions. Long 1000s on the track to search your legs, strip the fat from your bones, and teach you courage. It's definitely a course that favours the thin. Malcolm weighs 160 pounds; I weigh closer to 190. I hauled an extra 30 pounds up those switchbacks into the sky. The new course is longer by 300m and more cruel, offering a blessed downhill within earshot of the finish line, followed by a sharp turn into a ski jump finish, 100m and very steep. That's where I started yelling like a goblin trying to make selection for 3 Para, that's when a Kadoorie photographer stepped out and snapped me, that's when Malcolm half turned and drew me a perfectly calm, considering look from deep in the clenched agony of his face and stepped across the line. That's where those hideous "yoga"* pressups I've been doing showed their worth. It was all about muscle by then, there was no air.

There was no air. 31 minutes something for seventh place. Last year, on the old 5k course, I ran 28.- something for sixth place. This year's winner- and so the new record- was 28.15. I'm miles away from a top 3 finish, but that's exactly what I want. Long repetitions. Uphill kilometres. Oh, shit, next year.

Dear Ben,

Local booze. It makes the whores poetical.
I cut my way to here. Thick bush and no
hurry. My track grown in behind, a pale
green pencil strike across the older, darker
woods. The aerial picture also shows no
blindness in the still, no bitter in
the whores, neat shanties, a long shed for
the timber co-op, one big H at the rescue base
outside of town: two Russian helos
in good nick and an airship I'll steal
to get out. This place has no view
of the moon. I need to get up in the mountains.
I'm writing this on the bar. I'll send it
down the river. Keep coming. With those long legs
you'll catch me in the hills. Keep coming.

The name of this place is

Dear Ian,

Undeniably strange, hearing your voice
and knowing you're a stone-skip away
in KL. Getting here is nothing from there.
I hope you make it. I've been baking
bread. That's my religious life now. The smallest
of creative acts repeated daily. Antibiotic
for the soul. I'm teaching the boys.
They bellow oui chef! when I sling them
across the kitchen for milk. Of course
they bellow everything in the good natured
brutal way of much loved boys. Oscar
will tell anyone his dad is crazy. It's my
theory that the world's carved up between
gross millionaires and needlepoint
collectivists. How'm I supposed to
believe that? he says. Look around I
tell him. But forget analysis. The trick is living
a free life amidst all this and baking your
own bread is just the start. Resistance Oscar,
it's what I keep telling him. Don't buy their bread.

I doubt he's listening but surely something's
sinking in?

Get here, ok?

Ben

The Director
Hong Kong Observatory

Dear Sir,

Or madam? A better man would have checked, but
screw it. Look, this flooding is nuts. Last year
the big weather came late: black rainstorms
in October. But this year, all early: that same
old guy is sitting watching TV with the water
stinking up his armchair. I don't think
he even wants to be rescued. Most people don't
but let's not get all philosophical. The thing about
the weather is this, it makes me think you
are not really in control up there.
I'm picturing you at the instruments. Maybe not
you personally. The rain is driving against those
angled windows and some sweating bit actor
is jabbing the console and saying I just don't
understand. Your faces are lit up green
from below. Sir, madam, it's going to take
some decisive action on your part, those lows
are sweeping in. Down here at ground level
some people, some people are wondering when
it'll all end. Don't judge them. People get scared.
Most don't even have the illusion that they
are in charge of the weather. Me, I
worked out a while ago that the weather always
passes. Up there in the tower you can
change it but you can't stop it. That would
be the real trick.

At some point up there I believe we stopped
talking about the weather.

Yours faithfully,

Benjamin Blain.

Dear Charlie,

May time in South China. This
sudden hot wet air is gasoline. One difference,
it won't light. Haul on it though
you will. Even those really huge
lightning strikes just stutter out. Better
take one last good lungful at April cool.
September 25 you can breathe
again. September 25. Did I ever
tell you about Mid-Autumn? The one
festival here I actually get. Lanterns,
the yellow moon. Bridges and gardens.
Kids up late. Footsteps
silver in the dark. No-one yells.
Moominvalley, Charlie. It's Hong Kong's secret
life. Beauty, I mean. The weather breaks
at the new moon and I forget myself. (I start saying
gasoline and referencing Finnish authors.)

I'm trying to say I'll survive the summer. Nine
and one half years I've been here now.

See you in August,

Ben