Author’s note: I had to rush home for a bit of an
emergency yesterday (everything is fine now). This post is not about the
emergency, but about the ride home. To reiterate, everything is fine. But I
didn’t know that at the time.
Hanging up a phone when the person on the other end has
that I-don’t-want-you-to-worry-but-I’m-scared tone of voice is stressful. Everything is going to be okay. I tell
myself that as I slip on my jacket. Okay.
Fine. Good. Not cataclysmic. Not world ending. Fine.
I find that my internal voice is using a tone reserved
for lying to a child. The condescension makes me angry at myself. My bike’s
freewheel clicks and clacks as I wheel it out of my building. The bike feels
firm, real. I expected otherwise. I expected dreamlike mist, ethereal nothingness.
Like a dream should feel. Because I want this to be a dream. But of course this
isn’t a dream.
I mount my bike and begin climbing a hill. My internal
voice has stopped lying to me. It is now reciting everything that could be
wrong. I am good at imagining the worst. It is a skill of mine. My mind wanders
the dark corridors of imagination and brings back terrors and horrors like
Tiger. I had a cat named Tiger as a child that would bring decapitated birds
and leaving them on my doorstep. Gifts, I suppose.
I climbed fast, out of the saddle. The bike swayed back
and forth under me like the pendulum bar of a metronome. I tried to concentrate
on my breathing. In. Out. Out. In. Out. Out. My mind kept bringing me macabre
gifts.
I crested the hill. I sat hard on my saddle and spun the
pedals. The hill flattened and then dropped off the other side. I tried to
pray. You’re supposed to pray during emergencies. So I tried. But the prayers got
stuck somewhere inside, popped like bubbles hitting the ceiling. I descended
the hill, clicking through the gears, legs spinning.
Everything is going
to be okay. Everything is fine. Dead birds were piling up on my doorstep.
Who brings death at a time like this? I hated myself a little, as I flew down
that hill. Hated my bent toward the negative. Hated the width and breadth of my
imagination. I dropped my knee and flicked my bike through a turn at thirty
miles an hour. The bike leaned into the turn, wheels whizzing on the asphalt.
More turns, twisting, descending, flying. Eyes scanned
the roads, cross roads, and sidewalks. Don’t
get hit. Don’t hit someone. Ride fast but safe. The road flattens. Stop
sign. Full stop. Foot down. Breathe. Once. Twice. Go. I stood to accelerate
from the stop and stayed standing longer than necessary just to move, just to
feel like I’m doing something.
Up the next hill. Sitting. Spinning. Heart rate climbing.
Voices silenced by the rhythm of the road, the steady churning of wheels on
tarmac, the chugging of my breath, the pounding of my heart. Just climbing now.
Just climbing. No darkness. No headless birds. No false encouragements to bring
baseless hope. Just me and movement and gravity and the wind.
Over the hill. On the flat. Moving. Just one more block.
I stood and sprinted for home. Not to buy myself time, not really. But because
gliding home felt like giving up, felt like I’m not doing my part, whatever
that is. So I sprinted.
Home. The garage door flew up. The bike rolled to a stop.
I fell on my knees. I prayed. One sentence. Just one sentence. But it flew like
it should. Soared off to wherever prayers go to meet God, to wherever heaven
is.
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