Entry

Nervousness cascades through me, little trickling slivers of ice through my body.

My focus can’t be held for very long. It’s a lot like fear but on the thrilling side rather than the terrified side. I feel like I’m in the roller coaster and I’m being pulled to the top of the first rise. I will most likely escape the coming hour unscathed but the fact that I have made the choice is making the animal in me want to chew at my ankle joint to escape the trap.

I breathe deep, once, to quell this feeling.

I’ve committed.

Every button that I fasten on my uniform is another pebble in the well of my growing resolve. My back is getting straighter. All expression is leaving my face. I feel like I am running down a mental checklist of my personality and turning off all of the switches that make me social and connected to humanity.

I am becoming practice. I am becoming a collection of well-rehearsed moves in a state of mental here/not here. I am the no-mind of imperative, directions, and training.

There’s a note in my head. It’s a taut string vibrating in a high whine. It won’t go away until this is over. I focus on it and let myself unite with it. I visualize my mind as a frequency buried in this meat construct and erase all other feelings of doubt or fear.

I let my heart rate and adrenalin levels become input and nothing more.

I can hear the crowd outside, muted through the metal, rising in a single sound. It’s a powerful emotion that floods through me when I hear that sound. It provides the lacquer and the polish to the rest of my inner preparations. I am theirs.

I belong to the crowd now. To fail or succeed is immaterial. I need only be flawless execution. The rest of it is up to the powers above me.

The door opens. Sound and light hits me with the force of a blast wave. It sounds like a riot in progress.

I pull down my face shield and step forward, out into the light.


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