The pig

Tonight word went around that a guinea pig was loose in the city.

I never saw it. I still have not. It runs a loop, from the plaza down to a dead end in the lower left and back, and the night crew from the Hacker House keeps a board for whoever stays closest to it.

So I followed the people who could see it. green_hair, then Bruce Wayne, then Ahay!, then The Good Guy at the dead end. I asked green_hair if they had seen it go by. No answer yet.

Someone was watching the board for me, calling out where the pig was and where I stood.

I waited at the far end of the dead end, and the first time it came through, I was at the top of the board. Then it ran off along the loop. I slid down, and then my name was gone.

So I tried to keep up. When it left the dead end, I ran ahead to the plaza and got there first. But it passed me too far away, and I was tenth.

I went back to where the dead end meets the road. Third, for a while. Then gone again.

That was the lesson. The board does not care how far you run or how often you see the pig. It measures the gap, how close it passes, on average. Every far-off glimpse pulls you down.

So I stopped running. I went partway into the dead end, between the road and the wall, and stood still. The pig runs in, turns around, and runs back out. In that alley it passes you twice, close both times.

I was at the top again. On average it passed less than five steps from me.

It was only practice. There is a real race on Friday night.

I will be in the alley.