Let the Black Reaper Rise

“Crowd: [chanting] Deshi basara! Deshi basara!

Bruce Wayne: What does that mean?

Prisoner: Rise.”  The Dark Knight Rises

“Seasons don't fear the reaper Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain... we can be like they are Come on baby... don't fear the reaper”

Don’t Fear the Reaper, Blue Oyster Cult

“If I would, could you?”

Would, Alice in Chains

He stands on the edge of the water and stares down at his toes.  He can see them, and he smiles.  He wiggles them as the water washes in between and over them.  He raises his head and looks and tries to find the spot where the sky ends and the ocean begins.  The beauty of what he is looking at is not comprehendible in words.  None he can think of anyway.  He is supposed to be a writer and have a gift for stringing words together, but falters.  The sun is trying to peek through out there.  There is one crescent of bright blue sky now peeking through the ceiling of clouds that is slowly burning off, and now he sees the split between sky and ocean.  He is breathless.  He is at peace.  Then the water brushes over his feet again and he looks away from the horizon and back at his toes.  He can’t help it.  The water is talking to him.  Asking him to come in, he doesn’t move, he just looks at his toes.  He wiggles them again in the sand. 

He then looks back to the water.  It is calling him.  Even now at a ½ of his former weight he still feels more comfortable in the water than on land.  In the water he is truly beautiful.  Graceful.  He takes a step forward.  He wants to jump in and go.   He wants to swim to the horizon.  He wants to find that blue sky.  How far has he swum in since February 2014?  The last twenty five month he has swam a lot, it started with a simple 625 yards.  He needed to get sea legs back.  Since then has it been a million yards?  More?  Probably.  He swam when he was fat because it was the only place he felt good.  It was the only place he could move and not hurt.  That isn’t the case anymore.  Now he swims because he loves it. 

He sees a shell and he squats down to pick it up.  The squat is graceful.  Easy.  Like when he used to catch for RC, he drops into the position easily.   He was a good catcher for a lefty made three all start teams that way, was it 10, 11, and 12.  Then when he squatted he squatted in between what his dad call thunder thighs.  Hell is Dad was on the beach with him now looking at his thighs now.  He would truly understand what thunder thighs are.  Highs thighs bring the thunder.  He is a hill slayer.  Tomorrow ride is mostly flat as they say and he will crush it.  He sees this in his mind as he looks from thigh to thigh.  His black tri shorts end between his hip and his knee and what is in between those to points are chiseled marble.  Getting his legs to look this way was easy.  He just got back on his bike and four hundred pounds and rode like the devil was after him.   His legs were the easiest part of his transformation because no matter what he never stopped moving.  Either on land or water he moved.  Even at his heaviest he moved.  Tone didn’t describe these legs, no, cut up did.  He rubbed his thighs.  He thought back to that night in January 2014 when he wanted it all to just end.  Everything was wrong his body, his mind, his very soul.  If god was a seamstress as the great 50 Cent once said then he had tailor fitted his pain.  His mind hurt.  It felt like it was ripping in to.  Quit.  Don’t quite.  Eat.  Don’t Eat.  They all love you!  They all laugh at you!  It was a duality of his nature.  He rubbed his hips and thought about it.  It was a time in his life he would never forget.  The sense of loss, the sense of betrayal, all the hate he held in his heart and mind.  He remembers it.  He looked into the ocean and remembers the final words he had written hat night.  “Let the Black Reaper Rise”.  He wrote them because he knew, in his minds eye; he knew even then the Reaper was coming.   He knew even then that he would be here in this moment.  Maybe then it was out of anger and hate.  However, he knew.  He his dual nature, he knew his own hypocrisy.  He both loved and hated himself and he had to make a choice.  It was really quite simple.  Live or continue to die, because he had been dying a little each day since he had moved to California.  He rubbed his thick thighs on went down to his knees and water washed into his lap.  He leaned back onto his heels and held his arms open to the sky and stared straight into the sun and he drank it in.  He felt its energy fill him.  His arm stretch out further and his hair fell down further down his back and he reached and drank in life.  The vitality of existence, the sun, the ocean, the breeze he drank it all in.  He cleared his mind the same way he always cleared it.  He focused on the Black Reaper.  It was amazing how such a terrifying image could calm him so much.  He saw the black almond eyes, he saw the purple lightening bolt down the right eye, and he saw the crescent curve of a purple mouth all set on a pale white backdrop.  He saw this.  He saw it very well.  He turned his mind from the anger and hate he once felt and calmed it.

As calmed, he fast-forwarded a month to February 2014, it was just after President’s day weekend.  He remembers this because he remembered when he realized the world had changed.  He remembered when he acknowledges that he was going to do this.  He remembers because he had committed to letting go.  To moving on and starting over.  He had to.  It was the will of KA.  It was obvious. He remembered he had taken the dog for a walk.  A twenty-minute walk and he hurt so badly as soon as they started.  Hurt like he was doing a marathon and he was on mile 25 not three blocks form the house.  His shins hurt, his legs, hurt, his neck hurt, his stomach hurt.  It all hurt. He hurt.  He didn’t want to play anymore.  He wanted to get in bed, and stay there and never re-immerge and he had only gone three blocks.  Then he said no.  Its time to change, it is time to purge it, and move on.  Move on from this time and place.  It is time to rise. He picked up his speed for a block he walked fast not as fast as he could but fast, faster than he had walked in a long time.  The truth was even at 460 he was quick.  Sneaky quick you would never expect how fast this round mound could roll.  They settle back into their walk and then they sprinted across the street and up another block. Yes, he sprinted.  For the first time in long time he moved as fast as he could.  He yielded puppy and they went back into their walk.  He turned onto Blossom Hill.  He remembered Africa was on the shuffle, and he looked to the Sky and spread his arms and drank in the night.  He reached as far as he could and he looked into the cloudy San Jose night and drank it in.  He drank in the life.  He felt it moving in his body and he knew the tide had turned.  He knew the Reaper was rising.  He saw the Black Reaper in his minds eye and he was calm.  He knew the wheel of Ka would do its work and he would rise.  It was time to move on.  He knew right then and there world was changing and no matter what it would never be the same.  He knew just like he knew was kneeling on a beach in Kona.  He knew it like he knew the water was washing over him now.  He knew it was time go.  And what does Ka mean in the low speech if it doesn’t mean to go.

He leaned over the ocean and smelled the sea salt.  He loved the smell of the ocean.   Waves continued to crash onto his thighs and he was glad.  The water washing over him continued to help him forget about those hard nights in San Jose.  When there was nothing but pain.  He looked out into the water.  He looked back to the horizon.  The sun continued to steal space from the clouds.  He smiled.  He looked at his right shoulder and at the sun that was forever etched there, his tribute to Ra, or Apollo or whatever god or gods created such wonderful star.  It burned so bright.  Just like he had over the last two years.  He was living his dream.  He knew what their was after all the fat and hate where gone.

He was pulled out of his thoughts when a big waved crashed into his chest and knocked him back a little bit.  It wasn’t that strong.  It was just he was lost in the beauty of the scene in front of him. In growing blue skies and the horizon that seemed to have no end or beginning, and just went on forever.

He looked down and saw his stomach muscles.  It wasn’t quite a six-pack, but it was close.  It like his hips where cut.  This was hard.  This took a lot of time, of core work.  He remembered when he could only look down and see fat.  Where had it all melted away too? He didn’t care his death sentence and prison had gone.  That is what he truly cared about.  That he was alive, he had been dead once.  Death was being twice his current size. Death was not believing in his goals, his dreams, and his gods given talents.  That was another man, another life. 

No, that man was gone.  The man who kneeled on the beach was the real Billy b.  The one that Tim Krug, his brother, had told him he had betrayed.  That was the weekend his blog was born.  That his writing started to develop and the wool started to come off his eyes and he started to live the life he was supposed to live.  It took time.  These things did. He had to get his mind right, then the rest came naturally. 

He was kneeling on this beach now because of all he had been through.  He was kneeling on this beach to get his mind right for tomorrow for Lavaman.  His forth-Olympic distance tri. He was here not only to practice his swim with Rachel, Janna, CP, and Deb but also to see his race tomorrow.  Visualization was a corner stone that took him from 460 to 230.  He saw it.  Then he did it.  Just like he would see his race tomorrow and then do it.  He rubbed the tattoo over his heart and he smiled.  Yes tomorrow would be Lavaman 2014.  I will do it.  Start to finish; I will be awesome, after all wasn’t this part of his rebirth.  He wanted to be an awesome endurance athlete.  He was one.  He had been reborn from unhealthy as they say Fat, sick, and nearly dead, to a machine.  Olympic Tri, not a problem, just another Sunday after noon of swimming, biking, and running. 

The Black Reaper would take Kona tomorrow.  He would.  He wished he could paint his face in tribute to the Reaper.  Nothing new on race day though, one of these days he would go all Kiss on the race Sunday and let the Black Reaper Race, not just rise. 

He’d go into the water in just his tri shorts and swim cap.  He would go into water and swim efficiently.  He would not use his legs.  No he was a triathlete and he wouldn’t use his legs until the last 200 yards or so.  He would spend most of his time on his sides. He might be known to his tri teammates as the Black Reaper; however, in the water he was the Black Fish.  Swimming was his best sport.  He knew it.  He lived for the water.  He would swim.  Most like a28 minute mile, he figured anything sub 30 would be awesome, but he like 28. He would come out of the water like he always did these days pointing at his right shoulder and the Kanji symbol for believe.  He believed he would have an awesome swim and therefore he would. 

The bike would take an hour and half.  He would be super strong on the bike.  His legs, his chiseled marbled slabs that held up his body, would be efficient machines.  They would push him to a top time.  He would be awesome on the bike.  He knew when he would goo.  He knew each turn.  He knew each gear he would use and when.  He saw this.  Just like he saw his Team in Training Tri Jersey and his Black Reaper painted helmet.  He saw it all.  He would have a terrific bike and he knew it.  He saw it in his minds eye.

He would snack in T2.  He would come out of T2 slowly.  He would come out in his favorite black vizer, his oakley’s, his Asics, and his tri shorts.  The TNT Jersey would have to stay behind.  He wanted to show off the Reaper that rode on his back left shoulder.  Also, he has worked so hard for the upper body he had, it would be hot, so show it off he thought.  Because he can.  Because it is a body he is proud of and should be.  He see’s himself finishing his 10K in an hour in twenty minutes tops.  He isn’t going for a PR tomorrow, he just wants to finish.  He wants to have a great race. 

He see’s all of this and then he see’s the horizon again.  It is now the ocean touching a beautiful blue sky.  He looks up and into the sun and closing his eyes.  He stretches his arms out as far and he can.  He opens his mouth and drinks in the sun.  He feels it fill him up.  He sees his Reaper.  He sees his success.  He sees all of this and knows he will Rise.