P A R T 2:
S L O W
M E
D O W N
POST: 0005
PROSE
11-02-02021
R E A D P A R T 1 ⇛ H E R E
The traffic is thick and coagulating quickly and my motorcycle⇋body is planning its move. The cars box up, I slip through cracks, cutting the lane at 45 miles per hour. My exhaust pipe is a cacophony.
Motos are better seen and heard. Loud pipes save lives . . .
and mine part traffic like Moses’ parts a sea. Do I have God’s blessing, or is this the sin of pride? Or lust? Does this spell last, or do the walls give? Do I drown in plastic, metal, and glass? Do these self-driving Teslas have codes and sensors for just this moment? For just this rider?
➭ Hoowf ➭ Hoowf ➭ Hwoof ➭ Hwoof ➭ I can judge my speed by the buffering air of my own motorcycle⇋body echoing off the cars I pass. I’m childish, running past fence posts, dragging a stick against them to listen to the quickening ➭ Pingk ➭ Pingk ➭ Pingk ➭ Pingk. Movement to produce a sound, noise for the pleasure of noise.
To the dead stopped drivers on either side of me, I’m a dangerous fool. I’m stupid speed and intensity in a place that is, for most, slow and tedious. A few of them might wish their life had this intensity. My accident would be an affirmation, a sedative. It would prove that the ride is not worth the risk. We often chose a safety we don’t quite believe in. My crash would help them believe in that safety again. So, it’s my magic against theirs and each rear vision mirror I pass is a moment I survived. A moment in time where I was invincible. I’m linking these moments of invincibility together for as long as I possibly can. I not a fool, and I’m not a lesson in the dangers of danger. I’m not anything. I’m dispersing, I’m losing track of the limits of my body. It’s shaking at the peripheries; I’m blending with air and steel. I’m flying again.
I wish that friend of a friend on a Harley had left a crack in the cinderblock wall that killed him. I wish that the wall had exploded when he hit it.
I wish he hadn’t hit.
He was heavy, and his bike was heavy. My motorcycle is light and I am lighter. Would I even leave a scuff?
I can help it, I’m thinking the soft center mass of my body. All organs and facia at work on the processes of living. An organic ballet traveling 45 miles per hour on a tight strip of a street between two rows of a potential wreck. Two rows of faith, framing a rash, light soul.