The road was cold.
His face collided with the hard surface and the combination of the cold and the rain jolted him back to reality. He didn't know how he'd gotten there for a second – he'd been a million miles away, back home, reclining with a book or tearing around with friends or with a girl in the backseat of a friend's car – but then it all came crashing around him and he closed his eyes. It was good, to lie there. The relief in his feet was immense; it was wildly pleasurable, almost, and he wanted to lie there forever.
"Warning, 3. First warning, 3."
But wouldn't it be nice? He tried to reach back to where he'd been before he'd fallen, but other images were forcing their way in. He was there, but it wasn't the sunny Louisiana he loved, with books and friends and girls. It was younger siblings crying, it was going to bed hungry and it was the absolute terror of being a night rider. It was the absolute terror of leaving all of that behind.
"Warning, 3. Second warning, 3."
Most everyone had passed him by now. He saw Garraty, McVries – friends, both of them, he was friends with both of them but he suspected that they were closer to each other than they'd ever been to him. There was something between them that he thought barely anyone could get. Something beautiful and real and raw. It was almost enough to watch them, to think about them.
He was bleeding. When he'd fallen down, probably.
"Warning, 3. Third warning, 3."
Get up.
But it would be nice to just lie, wouldn't it? To go back to that sunny Louisiana? To go back to everything he loved and with no worries?
Get up. You don't know what it's like when you die.
Gambling wasn't so bad.
Get up.
He got up. He lurched forward, his feet moving of their own accord, ready to carry him forward even if the rest of him didn't want to go. Even if he really wanted to die and maybe, just maybe, life after death would be more than black nothingness. Maybe he was a good enough person to get the good parts of his life back, to just live that. Well… after-live that.
He hadn't entertained thoughts of winning for a while; he knew that he wasn't going to win, it was going to be Stebbins. But a bit of hope slid into his heart nonetheless. If he won, it would all be good, wouldn't it? He'd have the money to make it good forever, and then he could die happy and knowing that he'd get that lead-lined coffin.
The coffin. That was why he was still walking. He needed to tell someone – Garraty, maybe McVries, but no… Garraty, Garraty was his best option for this, at some point. At some point. If he felt like he wasn't going to be able to make it. Garraty could win, he felt, because Garraty… well, Garraty had that quality about him, didn't he? And McVries would carry Garraty as far as he could. He could ask Garraty if (when) he had to, and he could hope for the best.
With rain sticking his shirt to his skin and his hair to his forehead, Art Baker walked.
I re-read The Long Walk yesterday. Baker makes me sad.