You set the pace, and up the standards, panting slightly as you brought the pace up to a jog. The sliders are deadpan mechanical. You're the leader; you're in control. The bolts and screws and sliding rubber are all plebeians. And as they slog their lives away grinding the mill, your sweat drops like offerings.
But you're the one others see. The one keeping fit. No one sees the workers tending to machines; we overlook them as if they were metal, without a heartbeat.
You see a person holding the bars of the treadmill, and lifting himself off "ground" for a few seconds. The machine runs, oblivious to the lack of work done. The person then succumbs to gravity, and without further fanfare, he has to keep at running the race. There's only this much time you can lift yourself higher, in utter disregard for your followers. Maybe you'd want to embezzle. But either way life brings you down all the same, and it's wiser for you to just keep running for your health (and your life).
You switch the machine off, ending work for the day. You wipe a drop of sweat of your brow. Turning back and looking at the treadmill, you wonder how many more people it has to serve and be trampled by.
Well, you'd realise, that sounds pretty much like your life.
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