Running, Part Joe ( A short story)

Running, Part Joe

-How infinity turned out to be nonexistent-

-Numbers are arbitrary. The collection of numbers is infinite-, Joe says. -That collection, it is infinite. I am part of an infinite something too. It makes me what I am. In this infinite whole, my share practically reaches zero. They call me that, -zero-. Or -the zero-.

Joe had not used capitals for a long time. It seemed so useless. Making letters bigger. It cannot be big enough to sustain the world. Someone will have a bigger letter. And there will be one with the biggest letter. And then, your letter 's share is obviously small. And there are so many letters! Joe needs no uppercase. He uses lowercase. He thinks he is lowercase too.

-And when they call me that, I can see the little -z-. I guess that is my only gift, or is it? But they mail me too. Never have I spotted a big-z- . I know. I should not worry about it. There are enough worries in this world. They are more important. For me too, I guess. They say. All these worries of all these people, yet again they proof that I am a zero. Because my share in worries is practically zero. So when I would be rational, I should not worry.

Rationality. Is it overrated or underrated? It cannot be rated perfectly, you would say. But it has a rating. More people approve it than despise it, or perhaps the other way around. Now, consider that we collect all people, and all people know whether they approve or despise it. We collect them on a field. An field that is infinite in size. And then a line is drawn. An infinite long one, of course. Thus, the field is divided. One part of the field will then get an -A- on it, where -A- stand for approving. The other half gets an -D-, for despising. All the people know whether they enter the A or the D zone. The people now walk into the zones. The further they walk, the more they approve it (or despise it for that matter). The people cannot walk for an infinite amount of time, and since no-one stands on the line itself (because it is assumed that everyone knows whether he approves or despises), it is obvious that the people are divided from -some place close to the line- and -far away from the line-, but -far away from the line- is never into infinity. Now imagine the field. We count the distance all people walked from the line. Absolutely speaking, one side has, of course, a larger sum (it is logical that regardless of how people stand, one side has always a larger sum. There will always be the slightest variation, that is the way how people stand). Relatively speaking, both sides are equal, because on the infinite field, the amounts both equal to zero. Therefore it is not underrated nor overrated.

-But then, when I am rational, and I should not worry, other people who might be worrying might stop worrying as well, because they are rational too. And if they are not rational, well, they do not worry. So then my share in worries when I do continue to worry will get bigger, so I guess my right for worrying increases too. So perhaps I should keep worrying. But when I do, others will too! What now?-

Not underrated nor overrated. Seemingly infinite times. The best guess for the rationality of Joe is that he does not underrate it, nor does he overrate it. And that turns out to be true for Joe. For anybody for that matter. Whether he overrates or underrates. It does not matter. He rates it the way it is. The way it is for him.

-So I decided to worry half of the time. Since I did not have much to do, I went running in the time left. Not that I was motivated, no. No motivation is as big as any motivation. But, running made me stop worrying. So that was pretty much what I had to do the other half of my time. It was not easy when I first started, but nothing is. They shouted at me while I ran. What did not they do. But well, I had to continue. I had no choice. Eventually, it got easier. And I got a bit faster, I suppose. Eventually I could outrun everybody. Soon some car was driving behind me while I was running. It kept chasing me for 3 hours. When I got back home a man came out of the car and ran to me while I was opening the door. I was pretty scared as I could not get the door open properly. The man shouted I ran a world record. I thought he was trying to be funny so I left him standing as I entered. That is when I bought a treadmill.-

When running a world record, you are number one. Therefore you have no real competition. And without competition, you cannot be number one. It is kind of weird. Number two is not first too. So no-one is first. If no-one is first, Joe is not first. So Joe kept thinking he was still nothing, even after running a world record.

-So I planted the treadmill for my television. And while I was running on that fine treadmill in the evening, I saw myself. That is when I started hating myself even more. I looked like a complete fool. I looked like what I was, a zero. I wanted to stop running, but then I had to return worrying all day. So instead I turned off the television and ran even harder.-

As is anything, effort is relative. Running at his fastest, Joe knew that it was nothing. Effort is no effort. -Fast- could never be fast, so-fast- does not exist. And now it leaves you wondering. How could you have just seen the word -fast- while it does not exist?

-And then the treadmill broke because I ran too hard. The stores were still open that evening, so I decided to buy a new one, because everything with a value has no real value. After giving a good lot of money I took the new treadmill with me. A finer model, the seller told me. Their finest. The finest. Of course I did not believe him. There is no finest. But since I had to buy a new one, I could give this one a try. And it did not fail me once. Then I spent hours running,but it did not seem so long, because, in time, after all, the starting point was equal to the ending point-

But was there an ending point? The ending point could never have been defined. Time is relative. Fact is, that Joe ran a lot. More than anybody else, and therefore, not much at all.

-That is what I mean. I did not run so much. Others said -forever and beyond-. I know that. I read it in some emails I get. I hate emails. Therefore I like it. Running on that treadmill was a lot like flying, really. I never got beyond those flying birds tough. But I came close. And I knew there had to be some way to go beyond them...-

Therefore it is a limit; to give meaning to anything what lies before it. Everybody thinks of limits because it gives meaning to their lives. Getting to the limit.

-Those birds must have a great burden. They carry all of my memories on their wings, as well as my dreams. My first dream ever, in fact. And boy, a good one! They were calling me -the One- instead of -the zero-. From that moment, there were even more birds coming. They often flew in formation, forming a big 1. They knew I liked it. I was forming my dearest memories back then. And even more birds were needed.-

But Joe knew that limits were not real. Limits cannot and do not exist.

-Eventually, it turned out that there were not more birds, but I was just coming closer to them. So they occupied more space in my view. I was running on clouds. And then one day, I reached one of the birds, and I touched it. While touching it, it died. It fell down, as did my memories the bird carried-

The door was breached. It was Joe who had fallen. They took him to the hospital. He had gone too far. He recovered quickly. He never saw the birds anymore, but he was running again.

-That was when that man from the car came at my door again, to ask if I was still running. I said yes, and closed the door immediately. I went back running. After that there was no way anymore to get rid of him. Every time I left my house he came to me. Since the fall of the treadmill I had started to worry less-

The last time he had seen Joe, Joe ran a world record. They say Joe has trained even harder since. They had to get him signed up for the games. For their glory.

-And one day, I just asked him what he wanted. I do not know where I got that courage from. If I wanted to run for the American team, coming games, he said. It made me remember those days when they called me -the zero- even more. I could not win for my team. Not me. So I politely rejected.

Glory too cannot last forever and therefore it does not relatively last at all. Joe would say that. But they did not think that way. They had to get him for the American team.

-I think he asked me more than 1000 times. Eventually I saw I could not escape this and I was just in time to get in the games. I came. I ran. I won. From that moment, they started calling me -the One-. Zeroes turned into ones!

This short story has been written by my son and posted on my account at his request.
All quotation marks have been replaced by dashes.