Huj. Huj. Hajra.

We come to these gyms like moths drawn to the light, or a dog fixated on a bone buried deep in the backyard.

We are drawn to these bare bones boxes in a way we can't even explain to ourselves, or to our loved ones—who get a quick hug, a ruffle of the hair, and a breathless "Gotta go work out" as we tumble out the door, panicked once again to get to the place before the warm-up starts, before the battle, before we miss anything, because you know we don't like to miss anything.

The place.

You'd think it was a castle, the way we describe our gyms.

Like knights gather there and slay dragons, bearing arms against the darkness and saving the village from all those evildoers who would ravage it.

In truth, it might be a dank warehouse, or a clean well-lit room, or somebody's garage. Even a parking lot. There are no knights, no maidens, no dragons. Well, no dragons except those we carry within us already.

We all have some fire-breathing creature within us, some nebulous, nameless soul who can be summoned to do the heroic things that we, in the cold light of day, think we cannot.

When things get bad, when the dark settles on us way before the daylight ends, we summon our inner fire-breather and we fight. We rally, we rail, and we forge onward—to finish a workout, to help a cause, to help each other.

On this day, at least, we eat the darkness and the darkness does not eat us.

We don't know about tomorrow, but we most certainly hope it will be like today, and somehow the light grows instead of fades. And so we work, work, work against the fading.

In the Middle Ages, the Hungarian conquerors had a battle cry: "Huj, Huj, Hajrá!" It means "Faster! Faster!"

Huj, Huj, Hajra indeed.

See you at the castle.