the 110th day of january

the hillside soaks up sunlight, but the mud doesn't warm. a frozen night slowly releases ice as spectators trample the grass, while the upper sliver of moon lazily arcs across the sky. moisture wicks through the bottoms of my shoes, dampening my socks, cooling my feet.

a persistent breeze funnels up the bridge and catches the row of barricades; two of them topple, but the third one somehow stays upright. eerily, it starts scooting uphill onto the course, slowly picking up speed as the barricade marshals stare at it in shock. someone runs off after it, wrestling it out of the wind. the barricade collapses once the wind dies, like strings cut from a puppet. for the rest of the race, each barricade is assigned a human minder to keep it from wandering back onto the course.

this means more barricade marshals have to be dispatched as mobile crowd-control.

20 April 2018 16:44