Giving Up

Four boys running across a field, three of them moving well in a small pack - legs pumping, chests out, heads high, pure joy in forward motion.

The fourth is slower and runs like someone unaccustomed to the task. My eyes flick back and forth between them: the sprinters surging, reckless with laughter, encouraging each other to greater speed, while the kid at the rear falls further and further behind, his every effort seeming only to slow him down more.

He persists even as he slows until finally his stride subsides into kneeling, into falling, into laying out flat, arms akimbo, face down on the grass.