The Last Checkpoint

By checkpoint nine, Tobias's blisters had stopped hurting in any specific way and started hurting everywhere at once. He had read somewhere that this was either a very bad sign or simply the body giving up on being precise about it.

跑到第九个检查点时，托拜厄斯脚上的水泡已经不再是哪里具体地疼，而是到处一起疼。他在哪儿读到过，这要么是个非常糟糕的信号，要么只是身体懒得再分辨疼在哪儿了。

The overnight city race had twelve checkpoints scattered across neighborhoods he'd never had a reason to visit. Teams connected them by whatever route they chose: running, biking, or, in his case by this point, limping between. He had started strong, near the front of his age group, before a wrong turn near checkpoint six cost him forty minutes and something harder to name than time.

这场通宵城市赛一共设了十二个检查点，散布在他从来没有理由去过的街区。各队可以自选路线把它们连起来：跑步、骑车，或者像他此刻这样，一瘸一拐地走。他起步很猛，一度排在同龄组前列，可在第六个检查点附近拐错了一个弯，损失了四十分钟，还丢掉了某种比时间更难形容的东西。

His phone showed three other teams had already finished. Two more were somewhere ahead of him, close enough that catching them felt, in his exhausted arithmetic, almost possible and completely impossible at once.

他的手机显示已经有另外三支队伍完赛了。还有两支就在他前面不远的地方，近到让他觉得追上他们几乎有可能，在他筋疲力尽的盘算里，又完全不可能。

What kept surfacing, uninvited, with every step now, was a single unhelpful question: did finishing last still count as finishing? He had never actually asked anyone this directly, mostly because he suspected the honest answer might talk him out of the last four checkpoints entirely.

此刻每迈一步，一个没用的问题都会不请自来地冒出来：最后一名完赛，还算完赛吗？他从没当面问过任何人，多半是因为他怀疑，诚实的答案可能会让他干脆放弃剩下的四个检查点。

A volunteer at checkpoint nine, stamping his card without much ceremony, glanced at his face and seemed to read something there. "You've got four left. Most people who make it this far finish."

第九个检查点的一位志愿者没怎么讲究仪式地给他的卡片盖了章，瞥了一眼他的脸，似乎从中读出了什么。“你还剩四个。能跑到这里的人，大多都会跑完。”

"Most people aren't in last place."

“大多数人可不是最后一名。”

"Somebody has to be." She shrugged, not unkindly. "Doesn't change what four checkpoints is."

“总得有人是最后一名。”她耸了耸肩，语气并不刻薄。“四个检查点还是四个检查点。”

Tobias sat with that for exactly as long as it took to drink half a bottle of water. Had he quit at checkpoint nine, he suspected, the blisters would have healed within a week and the four unfinished checkpoints would have stayed with him considerably longer.

托拜厄斯对着这句话坐了一会儿，时间正好够他喝掉半瓶水。他猜想，如果在第九个检查点退出，水泡一个星期就会好，而那四个没跑完的检查点会在他心里留得久得多。

He got up. The last three checkpoints passed in a kind of fog he wouldn't fully remember afterward, each one blurring into the last. His pace slowed to something that could charitably be called a walk and less charitably called a stagger.

他站了起来。最后三个检查点是在一片迷雾般的状态中过去的，事后他也记不太清，它们一个个模糊成了一团。他的速度慢到宽容点可以叫走路，不宽容点只能叫踉跄。

He crossed the final checkpoint two hours after the last other team, to a nearly empty finish line and one bored volunteer checking names off a list. Nobody cheered. Nobody needed to. He sat down on the curb, pulled off both shoes, and found that the number on the finishing list mattered a great deal less than he had expected it to.

他在最后一支队伍之后两个小时才冲过最后一个检查点，终点线前几乎空无一人，只有一位百无聊赖的志愿者在名单上划着名字。没有人欢呼，也不需要。他坐在路缘上，脱掉两只鞋，发现完赛名单上的名次，远没有他原先以为的那么重要。