A running tale from the past and across the water

A story of more than running

The apple sits quietly on the white sill of the open window. Alan watches it and then runs a finger down the shiny red skin that reflects the summer sun.

A is for Apple. It is supposed to be A is for Alpha in the military phonetic alphabet, but Alan had always preferred the imagery of an apple. It made him think of his favourite folk story about Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

Working as a code breaker during the war, breaking the secrets of the German Enigma machine had earned him the Order of the British Empire. Some say it helped bring the war to an end years early. Not that he could tell anyone, he was still sworn to secrecy years later.

Alan’s thoughts are drawn to the white cotton as it shifts in the early summer almost flicking at the apple. The innocent clothes moves at the bid of the moods of Mother Nature.

The thoughts of summer sun and ruffled cotton takes Alan’s thoughts back to the summer of 1947.

Blessed with a gifted mind for numbers, Alan also had legs that could propel him for miles. It was like his body and mind craved it, respite from the mental turmoil, he reveled in pushing himself, minutes and miles slipping away in the joy of running. In a fight to defeat the Nazis in the war, he had run when he could find time, getting some satisfaction in beating his colleagues to meetings, often more than forty kilometres away.

Alan reveled a bit in his eccentricity, he knew he was different but at the same time ached to be allowed to fit in. A coffee cup chained to the radiator so no one would steal it, his ever-churning mind and his running; it was who he was, as much as he could reveal.

His mind was too busy for how to properly tie a Windsor knot or iron his pants and when his legs craved to run, he ran.

His mind is now quiet. His legs twitch in readiness after being tested in the previous months. Miles of training and preparation had honed his legs and body. It is August 23rd, a date he has drawn circles around in pencil on the calendar.

Other human gazelles, edgy to start, line the road around him. The race will determine who represents England in the marathon at the 1948 Olympic Games. His mind has worked out the training and what it will take to run his best, but this is a place where calculations and codes do not exist.

The starter’s gun shatters the silence. Alan finds himself caught up in the melee of the anxious start. Elbows fly, legs and feet churn frantically but foolishly, grappling for spots in the first few metres of a race that will last for almost three hours.

When nerves settle, Alan finds himself at peace. His mind clicks into running mode and his body moves into a familiar marathon gear.

Alone in his own battle, doubts and the course, Alan pushes the pace and grunts as he does when running hard. He also feels a sense of freedom that running gives him.

With feet flying, any calculations are pushed aside for a moment. It is one foot after the other. He is in the the chase.

Crossing the finish line in fifth place in a time of 2:46, Alan places his hands on his knees, his chest still heaving. It is a good effort, but not being in the top three means he isn’t going to the Olympics. The well-wishers weave around him to greet others. He is just another runner.

It has been two years since his last race and five years since his attempt at making the Olympic team. An injury has also pruned Alan’s ability to quench the thirst for flying over turf and road on foot.

Alan no longer runs, but he’s restless. He feels caught in a cage. He can see and hear, his mathematical mind still looks for a challenge but he feels lost.

The war is over. Secret work cracking codes and pushing himself to the limit is over as well.

Working in a secret building in England, he had been the one chasing, far from the guns but with the real pressure to save lives and help end a war.

Funny how he was the one that had been pursued after.

Alan Turing was a code breaker and mathematician who played a major role in bringing the Second World War to an end. He is regarded as a pioneer in modern computer science.

Turing was prosecuted in the UK for being homosexual when it was criminalized there during the 1950s. He was given hormone treatment in exchange for prison time as a sentence for being homosexual. He died in 1954 after eating an apple laced with cyanide. The death was determined to be a suicide.

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