race (microfiction)

24.09.2025

It was eleven fifty five in the night time. I was still full from the dinner I had eaten at ten o’clock because I had been out singing with my group. Alfonso was sitting in another country. An expensive country for a holiday. I was writing to him:

Black was the night. At the end of a long day, I was coming home. As I came out of the tube station, shining in the lights was the red livery of a bus. Without thinking about it, I started running towards the bus station at full speed.

In front of me, quite a few paces in front, there was a young man. He had also started running. Now I do not like anyone being in front of me in a race. And this was a race. Why? I made it a race. Because I have an ego. I am a narcissist. And I am a narcissist because I live in a world that tries to devalue me and tries to tell me that I am nothing. And I fight against it. I refuse to be nothing. I am special.

I am not a narcissist like other narcissists. Because I am a narcissist for my community. For us. I am the champion of my people.

I was a schoolboy athlete. I won because I had the body of a god, nerves of steel and self-belief. My mind is stronger than anyone else’s. I am invincible, undefeatable. Even at my age, I am still quicker than most people.

And then, even though he had started so ahead of me, I was running past him. Now, it was me that was miles in front. I was the winner. I never doubted it. It didn’t matter how far ahead of me he was when he had started.

The difference between me and anyone else is that I will run to my very limit, even so hard that I feel nauseous and dizzy at the end of it. Because nobody else can bear the pain that I have had to live with. No one else is as hard as me.

You are wondering why I am writing this anecdote of these very real events. You are wondering why I race against buses on the streets to the next station. Because I love fighting. I love running. I love winning. I love a challenge.

I have always been the underdog. In India, they scorned us as Untouchables. In the United Kingdom, they treat me like an outsider even though it was my grandfather that first came to this country. I will fight until my last breath against the disrespect and hate that is given to my people and to Mother India. It is why my mother gave birth to me. She prayed for someone to save the honour of Mother India.

Even after a major leg operation a few months ago, there was no way that I would lose to that young man. People see the white hairs on my head and think my age has passed. I am still fitter than everyone, I still have more stamina than everyone and I still have more ability than everyone. You can’t beat good genes. My grandfather was a university level athlete. The top in his university. I come from farmer stock. My parents married young. It is hard to match the power in this body. It is not a boast. It is reality.

And I have been expected to be the best at everything every since I was a baby. And so I am. My ego is absolutely unassailable.

That’s why I win. I was born to be a champion and raised to be a champion. I was born to be Tiger and I am Tiger.