wit


September 28, 2024.
Sometimes it happens that, while jogging, you run into something exceptional. This was such a day.

7.39 a.m., just woke up.
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Morning piss.
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Boil some water, grind some beans, ready the aeropress. Pour it down, push it down, slurp it down.
The morning ritual.
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Running once every two days. Sportswatch around my wrist. 8.21 a.m., fifty four beats per minute, in sync with my age.
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Coffee gone, sportswear on.
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8.32 a.m., go-time! Concrete and exhaust fumes soon make way for open fields, an open view, fresh air.
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Two kilometers further on, the track between the cornfields ascends to the highest point of Relegem. There ‘s a cloud hanging over it. “Huh? Is that a ladder?”
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A shout rumbles through the cloud. “Hullooooo!” The roaring highway almost pushes the voice away, but I can still hear what he says. “Are you coming upstairs?”

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8.44 a.m. I push the left button. ‘Registration paused.’
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Curiosity pulls me up the ladder.

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Slightly dizzy, I enter a foggy space. Am I seeing that right? A man on a swing?

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He jumps up and yells "Boooooy!"
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"Sooooon!" he yells again. Everything is shaken up. Do I even want to hear this?
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He spreads his arms and runs over to me. I panic and make him stop.
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He grinds to a halt and we look each other in the eye.
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My belly cramps up. Something in me recognizes that look.
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Suddenly a hand, a foot, a leg, an entire boy crawls out of my body. He uses all his might to prie himself free and yells “daddy, daddy, daddy…!”
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I look on in quiet disbelief while the boy jumps in the man’s, my father’s arms and closely embraces him.
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With the boy on one arm Sir my father approaches me and invites me into their happy reunion.
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“How I’ve missed you,” he whispers into my ear. “I missed you too, I think,” is all I manage to say.
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The boy grows tired of all that hugging. He jumps on my fathers shoulders and yells: “Swing, daddy, I want to swing!”

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A minute later his daddy pushes him with both feet through the air.
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“Why did you stay away so long?” I ask my father while the boy keeps yelling “higher, higher daddy, higher!”
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The blush on his pale cheeks makes it look like warm blood pumps through his veins again. “Well son, that’s hard to...“. “Higher!” the boy yells.
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My father pushes very hard indeed. A little too hard, so that the boy flies off the swing. “Higher!” turns into “Help!” and he falls down through the cloud to the ground.
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Startled I scream:
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I exchange a last look with my father…
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… and jump after de boy.

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I’m heavier and fall faster than him. It does not take long for me to be able to catch him.
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We tumble down as he grabs me closely. With my arms around him I try to protect him from an all too painful landing.
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The corn breaks our fall, Through the impact the child becomes part of me again.
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09.02 a.m.
I push the left button for a second time and continue jogging. ‘Registration resumed.’ “Love yououou," I hear from far away in the distance, but that might also be the wind, blowing softly.
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The end.
In honor of
Jerome Ysenbaert
(15/08/1929 – 28/09/1974)