His breath fell heavy, tired, ragged.  He was tired.  He considered himself too old to be exerting this much effort.  He couldn't remember the last time he had jogged, much less ran.  Ran like his life depended on it, which it did.  His general rule was that if his arse wasn't on fire, he wasn't running.  That rule served him well-until now.

He had to run.  Forced to run or face death.  When considering running or death, he decided running was marginally the better choice.  So he begrudgingly ran, which left his body in the situation previously described.

His heart beat madly in his chest as if it were furiously peeved at his attempt at preserving his life.  "How dare a man of his advancing age even attempt running?" it seemed to be saying,  "And he didn't even do warm-up stretches".  "You moron", thought the brain.  "There was no time for warm-up stretches.  Were you even conscious during the moments leading up to our run?"

Of course, it could be argued that most of the body was only semi-conscious during those precious moments leading up the what the body was now calling "The run for our life".  Harold had been in a daze.  He seemed to stay in one most of the time lately.  Life had been lived on auto-pilot of late.  Harold was fine with that.  He lacked appropriate decision-making skills, and he hated attempting to make viable decisions based on his faulty skills.  He was always amazed and slightly jealous when other people made smart decisions.

While he did not want to go to the bank this morning, his mother made that decision for him.  She was definitely not devoid of proper decision-making skills.  She was a master of that skill, and she always let him know that his lack of decision-making skills came from his father's side of the family.  Mother said go to the bank, so off Harold went. 

The sun was shining brightly.  Birds chirped.  The air was crisp and inviting.  Would could possibly go wrong on a day like today?

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