BORN TO BE FIRST

​ The alarm clock didn't wake Amina; the silence did. It was 4:15 AM, that hollow, indigo hour in their small town when even the roosters were still deciding whether to remain asleep. In the darkness of the room she shared with her younger sister, the only sound was the rhythmic, whistling breath of a sleeper and the distant, metallic clink-clink of a neighbor filling water buckets at the communal borehole. ​Amina sat up, her joints popping like dry twigs. She moved with the practiced stealth of a thief, avoiding the floorboard that creaked and the rusted spring in her mattress. Every movement was a ritual. ​ First, the gear. She reached for her kit, a faded green jersey and shorts that had lost their elasticity years ago. They were laid out on the chair with the precision of a surgeon’s tools. She didn't have the high-tech, moisture-wicking fabrics she saw in the magazines at the local barber shop. She had polyester that held onto the scent of laundry soap and old sweat, and she had a pair of sneakers with soles worn so thin she could feel the texture of every pebble on the road. ​She sat on the edge of the bed to lace them. Left foot first. Double knot. Right foot. Tighten. ​ "Amina?" her sister’s voice was a groggy mumble. ​ "Go back to sleep, Joy," Amina whispered, her voice gravelly from disuse. ​ "The rain is coming. I can smell it in the dirt." ​Amina didn't respond. She could smell it too, a heavy, metallic weight in the air that promised a downpour by noon. She stood up, grabbed her plastic water bottle, and slipped out of the house. ​ The air outside was a shock of cold against her damp skin. The town was a silhouette of jagged rooftops and sleeping palms. This was Amina’s kingdom. While the rest of the world was dreaming of things they could not have, she was awake, claiming the road. ​ She began with a slow jog, a shuffle meant to wake up her nervous system. Her hamstrings felt like overstretched guitar strings, tight and protesting. ​ “You are running like a girl with lead in her shoes,” her grandmother’s voice echoed in her mind. It wasn't a memory of a single conversation, but a haunting, persistent refrain that had been woven into Amina’s upbringing like the threads of a tapestry. “Grandmother, I am tired,” she would say as a child. And the old woman, sitting in her carved wooden chair with eyes that seemed to see through walls, would simply tap her cane. “The road doesn't care if you are tired. The finish line doesn't have ears. You were born to be first, Amina. Not because it is easy, but because it is yours.” ​ Amina reached the outskirts of town where the paved road surrendered to packed red earth and she picked up the pace. "​Thud-shush. Thud-shush." ​ Her breathing moved from shallow gasps to a deep, bellows-like rhythm. This was the "Zone", the point where the pain in her lungs became a secondary thought and the rhythm of her stride became the only truth in the world. As she ran, she visualized the regional qualifiers. She saw the stadium in the city, the bright white lines of the synthetic track, the electronic scoreboard, and the scouts from the national academy sitting in the stands with their clipboards. She imagined her rival, Cynthia. Cynthia, who lived in the city. Cynthia, who had a coach with a whistle and a stopwatch. Cynthia, whose shoes probably cost more than Amina’s father made in a month. Amina’s jaw tightened. She pushed her pace into a sprint, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. The red dust kicked up behind her, coating her ankles. The horizon began to bleed a pale, bruised purple. The road began to incline. This was the "Wall," a steep hill that led toward the old cocoa plantations. Most runners in town avoided it but not Amina, she sought it out. She drove her knees higher, her arms pumping in sharp, efficient arcs. The lactic acid burned in her thighs, a hot, searing sensation that whispered for her to stop but she knew she was “Born to be first.” hence she didn't stop instead she crested the hill just as the first sliver of the sun broke over the trees. She stood there for a moment, her chest heaving, sweat dripping from her chin onto the thirsty soil. She looked down at her hands; they were shaking from the effort. In that moment, she wasn't a student, or a sister, or a girl from a town that people only passed through on their way to somewhere else. She was a runner. She was a force of nature. She took a long pull from her water bottle, the liquid lukewarm and tasting of plastic, but it felt like nectar. She looked at the clouds gathering on the horizon, the rain Joy had predicted. It was coming for the qualifiers. The track would be slick. The air would be heavy. "Let it rain," she whispered to the empty road. Turning around, she began the long jog back home. The ritual was complete, but the real test was only forty-eight hours away.