Friday: Writing

South Wind was a character I had made long ago. She was a twist of wind made of sand that glittered like gold.

I was seated in the shade of a birch tree at the edge of a pond when she came to me. My bicycle laid on her side in the grass and we were both resting. South Wind approached, rustling the leaves of the birch tree and turning in a small cyclone before me. When she moved over the water it rippled.

That's when I knew it was time to ride, so I packed up, heaving my bag across my chest and onto my back. The bicycle came prancing to me and I mounted. We found the road and we were off, trailing the comet of gold dust before us.

The wind whispered to me, White stars made of diamonds shining in the night like the dreams of a dove nestled in the rafters of a house. The house is high up on the hill, but one day the ocean will knock it down and drag it out. How could you not know the love of a pink bicycle? When I looked into your eyes my world fell down, when you closed your eyes, my world ended, and there was nothing left but the spinning emptiness and the men in robes slowly lowering the coffin into the ground - it had been snowing that day. Do you remember that day?

She rambled on and on, repeating the phrases she caught on the crosswinds that blew through her. The phrases had originated somewhere far away and traveled the world, picking up and losing other words until the phrases became so jumbled they only made psychedelic poetry.

I followed close to South Wind, as if I were drafting, chasing after an elusive, perfect wheel. I felt the bicycle bend under me as I pedaled hard. South Wind was not waiting for me. She would leave me behind if I could not keep up.

The world passed around us like the inside of a zoetrope, scenes I could not understand moved jerkily through the space, shapes formed that I did not have the words for, it was as if witnessing the creation of the earth and I named the things as they passed before me in a language that had no voice. The bicycle hummed below me.

South Wind began pulling me faster and faster, and my legs burned with the force of my pedals.

When I was a child I was the last to learn to ride a bicycle and it was the end of a beginning in the middle of the epilogue. I spent too much money at the fair. They were driving down the canyon, they were young people in love, the music was loud and the car was fast, and the road opened up before them as if it would never end. How could you have hoped to know? Follow follow follow!

There was a cliff in the distance and South Wind was leading me right toward it. The bike had picked up so much momentum that I wasn't sure I could even brake in time.

FOLLOW!

My thoughts had slowed me down, I had lost the pocket of perfection right behind South Wind. I mindlessly obeyed, the bike seemed to be breaking contact with the ground.

Do you believe in me? said South Wind.

I didn't actually believe in anything. All I believed in was nothing. And so I had nothing to lose if I rode off the cliff. So I followed.

As I approached the very edge, I hesitated for a split second. South Wind screamed, No!

The bike lurched as it went over, violently dropping a couple of feet, but I gripped the drops and mashed, I was too tight to shift gears. I forced each thigh down down down, first the left then the right. Below the stars and galaxies foamed like a waterfall and I could hear my death roaring. I climbed an ascent I could not see, only feel, and it was steep and long. But I climbed. Sweat poured down my face, my body objected, pulling me back, pulling me down as the weight slowly died.

And then suddenly, the ground leveled, and with another stroke, I was secure. The tension dropped out of my body and I shifted down to a kinder gear to recover my knees.

Ahead South Wind continued to ramble.

We witnessed a sunrise in outer space as the planet sank on the other side of the star. One moment it was dark and the next moment my eyes were full of light. It swallowed up everything it touch and South Wind sparkled gloriously.

My eyeballs caught fire in my skull and South Wind just laughed, but it didn't matter because I was blind and I could not see the sun when it went supernova, throwing debris out into the universe. I could not see the car coming at me, I could not see its headlights, I could not see its streaking metal sides, I could not see it hit a curb and spin out of control, I could not see it launch its passengers into space. The passengers, a young couple, grabbed hands as they flew, and together they reeled out into the nothingness to turn and turn and turn and turn and turn and turn and turn and turn and turn and turn....

The train has come to the station and all your steeds are in their stables, all your silver bells are lined up in a row in the garden - tell me, how does it grow?

The bicycle hummed.

Writing July 2009

Admittedly, I was inspired.