The Pole Vaulter
I found my father’s training notebook on his nightstand.
At first, it reads like data. Dates on the left. Heights on the right. The record of his jumps, measured carefully, almost clinically. March, May, June, July, and so on. Page after page.
Then, the pattern shifts.
There are stretches where the entries thin out, then stop altogether. Blank pages. And then, suddenly, they return. New dates, new numbers, written with the same deliberate hand, as if nothing had been interrupted.