The crowd around him roared their support as he screamed, and truly, in that moment, he had felt no hurt. For a moment, he transcended it. He was whole. He was loved. He had tried, in his adult years, to re-contextualise that moment, to understand whatever it really must have been. Adrenaline was the obvious main ingredient, combined with other potent neurotransmitters and the irresistibility of eusocial belonging. A heady cocktail, that.
