The traffic noise faded into complete silence.
When one paid attention, one would notice that there was not the presence of birds or crickets
Had the world ended?
Was this like that scene in 28 days later where that one English dude with a funny hair cut went walking through that English town and no one was around? (before all that zombie stuff happened. Just help me out and stay in the picture I'm paining.)
No.
The world continued. Other than a moment on Sports Center when Chris Bergman announced the embarrassing "DNF" of the legendary Johnny del Fuego in the Pine Ridge Enduro, the world quickly returned to normal. People went to work the next day. Perhaps by chance they would mention the race at the water cooler to an uninterested coworker then blissfully sit at their desk and continue the never ending tasks. Never to finish, but never to stop. Never really succeeding, but never really failing. Then go home to their families, their other lives, things that are more important to them. Or less. No matter. Another racer would enter their water cooler conversation. Their child might ask their parent to buy a different rider's jersey to wear as pajamas, but life continued generally as normal.
Not for Johnny del Fuego. The silence that came over del Fuego was ____. To say words to describe it is in adequate. Because words have volume, so it was just: _______________. His mind was not quite so silent. In fact it raced like del Fuego only knows how. Would he race again? Were the race officials right when they said that he was so slow getting to the check points that the scoring system had no way to even calculate his place? Some what of an undefined number where x is not zero and Johnny del Fuego's score was x/0 but in a bad way? A score that is asymptotic in a Cartesian coordinate system where Y approaches infinity and X approaches zero? Like a rectilinear hyperbola, but not the curve that's in the first quadrant, like Johnny thinks he is, but the 3rd quadrant with all the negative stuff?
Such thoughts shake del Fuego to his core. This would be a good time for Johnny to spend with his friends and even his family to examine him purpose. His goals. What is important to the del Fuego. This even has some risks. Would they encourage him to descend into the path of mediocrity that they had taken? Would it be an endless series of back slaps and "That's a tough deal, man. Let's get wasted" 's? What would they know about trying to maintain the greatness that is del Fuego, only to have it ripped from them by technicalities, uncalibrated watches, and scoring systems that have 3rd quadrant asymptotes? ASYMPTOTES!
While these thoughts were going through Johnny's mind, he found himself guided by an unseen hand to the airport. On to a plane that's destination was unknown to Johnny (this is no time for thinking about such ephemeral things as destinations. The ticketing lady was probably pretty pissed, but someone as handsome as del Fuego is not to be refused). The plane took him to his quiet spot, the place that anyone should go when contemplating their place in the universe. That place... is... Ibiza. To his vacation home in Ibiza. He goes there every winter anyways so it was very convenient that it coincided with a spiritual journey.
Six months of monastic living. Training in the ancient ways of pure, Balearic island living cleared his mind and allowed Johnny to distill the essence of his purpose. He would start the morning with a macchiato on the beach, just to wake and recover from his intense training of the previous day. This would be followed by a massage in his cliff side villa that over looks the beach. When del Fuego decided that the massage would no long have anymore benefit if continued, the daily cleansing would commence. His house staff would clean the residue of the previous day's training off his naked body, on the limestone paved deck of the villa, and let the warm Mediterranean breeze dry him on his le Corbusier chaise lounge. At noon he would have a simple breakfast of tortilla bocadillo or if the previous day's training was particularly hard, a plate of eggs Benedict with extra hollandaise and capers. After this heroic exertion, a 1 hour nap was taken to repair any damage that might have occurred to the Swiss watch-machine that is the del Fuego. At three in the afternoon, Johnny would retire to the villa's private theater to watch Bad Boys II or any other Michael Bay movies to "deepen his mind." All in the name of finding purpose in life.
You may be asking yourself, at this point, why would anyone go through such punishment. Such harsh punishment of their body and mind. This behavior, voluntarily, is incomprehensible to a rational person. But we have to remind ourselves that other people, ones that are made of different stuff than you and I, exist. Exist for reasons that we can't comprehend. The few that live on a different plane of existence than you and I, live for a cause (I won't say a higher cause, though it may seem that way to us), a cause that was chosen for them by their ability. By one or more simple attributes inherited by pure chance. By planets aligning with the location of their parents on the day of their conception, and a good bit of luck and elbow grease.
Still, the training would continue on this typical day. As the sun set over the Mediterranean, Johnny would continue his brutal regiment. A salver of paella and a grab bag of tapas would serve before the coup de grâce of his training for this typical-not-so-typical-holy-fucking-shit-training-for-Olympians day. Yes, when you thought that one could not endure more, the del Fuego would crank an all night rave at Pacha with DJ Tiësto. Tiësto would always play Johnny's favorite, "Adagio for Strings" by Samuel Barber, out of respect for his greatness.
At last, the training for this typical day would end. Fuegito would wake up the next day, in the arms and legs of several models that that he met at Club Pacha (who were letting some steam off from a hard day of shooting a spread for Women's Immaculate, just like Johnny was relaxing from a hard day of physical conditioning), kick them out of his villa, and repeat the process again. Every day he was getting stronger mentally and physically. The more Johnny trained like this, the more his confidence returned. And closer he came to understanding el lugar del Fuegote in life...almost.
Then, came a phone call.
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