Racing to Beat the Devil

There's a strange sense of clarity that comes while you're running.  Sometimes, anyway.  It's like the world stops--the clock doesn't, thank God--but everything inside your head turns simultaneously fuzzy and focused.

Some days, it leads to profound thoughts.  Other days, you find you're racing to beat the devil.

At least, that's what Stephen King would call it, I think.

Silver flew and Stuttering Bill Denbrough flew with him; their gantry-like shadow fled behind them.  They raced down Up-Mile Hill together; the playing cards roared.  Bill's feet found the pedals again and he began to pump, wanting to go even faster, wanting to reach some hypothetical speed--not of sound but of memory--and crash through the pain barrier.

He raced on, bent over his handlebars; he raced to beat the devil.  (Stephen King, IT, 233)

Today was one of those days for me.  So many things.  An amalgamation of thoughts, worries, dreams, and desires.  I like to joke sometimes that normal people wouldn't last a day inside my head.  It's like the dream world in the movie Inception--sure, the possibilities are endless, but watch out, buddy, because it will turn on you, and it will eat you alive.

Normal people, of course, don't have years of practice with living inside my head.  I do.  And most days, I hold the villains at bay.  But every now and then, I find myself racing to beat the devil.  Harder and harder and faster and faster because as long as I'm running, it all gets pushed away.  And it needs to be pushed away.

Problem is, at some point you have to stop running.

He was going uphill again now, speed bleeding away.  Something--oh, call it desire, that was good enough, wasn't it?--was bleeding away with it.  All the thoughts and memories were catching up--hi, Bill, gee, we almost lost sight of you for a while there, but here we are--rejoining him, climbing up his shirt and jumping into his ear and whooshing into his brain like little kids going down a slide.  He could feel them settling into their accustomed places, their feverish bodies jostling each other.  Gosh!  Wow!  Here we are inside Bill's head again!  Let's think about George!  Okay!  Who wants to start?

You think too much, Bill.

No--that wasn't the problem.  The problem was he imagined too much."  (Stephen King, IT,  235)