The Chase

Have Brain, Will Travel

The sun is molten gold in the endless stretch of desert sky, but I don’t feel it. My paws hammer against the earth, claws scrabbling on sand and stone, and all I hear is the rhythm of pursuit — my heartbeat, my breath, the endless skittering of that infernal bird just out of reach.

This is who I am. This is what I do.

My eternal enemy zips ahead, a blue blur in a landscape of tan and rust. I don’t even hate him anymore. Hate is too simple, too human. This is deeper — primal, eternal, something cosmic. He runs, and I chase. That’s the order of things.

I glance to the side and see it — another one of those glossy ACME boxes dropped off like some cursed gift from the gods of consumerism. My paws skid as I veer toward it, ripping open the crate with practiced precision.

A rocket-powered pogo stick. Perfect.

I strap in, fingers fumbling with the harness as I calculate trajectories. The math spins in my brain like a carnival ride: height, angle, thrust. I could’ve been a physicist, you know. A genius. But no, here I am — shackled to the absurdity of my own ambition.

The pogo stick ignites with a screech, propelling me skyward in a plume of fire and regret. For a moment, I’m flying. For a moment, I see it — the smug bastard below me, a perfect target, oblivious to the inevitability of his doom.

Then gravity kicks in.

The stick falters. The desert floor tilts wildly in my vision, rushing up to greet me with its familiar, bone-jarring embrace. My body crumples into a heap, a cloud of dust rising like a curtain call for another failed act.

Pain radiates through every inch of me, but I stagger to my feet, shaking off the debris. I am indestructible, a force of nature fueled by obsession and the cruel laughter of a distant audience I can never see.

There he is again, perched on a rock, his beady eyes mocking me. Beep beep.

It’s infuriating, isn’t it? How he never sweats, never falters. How he just exists to taunt me, to remind me of what I cannot have. But here’s the thing — he doesn’t understand. He thinks he’s free, that his speed makes him untouchable.

But I’m always there, just behind him. Always chasing. Always trying. And in a way, that makes me freer than he’ll ever be.

The desert stretches out before me, endless and unforgiving. I take a deep breath, adjust the tattered remains of my pride, and start running again.

Because one day, I’ll catch him.

One day.