I settle into the seat and pause for a moment. The machine is cold and yet familiar,every crevice and peak locked into my memory. The biting cold wind swirls up around me for a moment and I accept its freezing,fleeting touch. The wind reminds me , my jacket left at home. An involuntary shudder ripples through me but my fate is sealed. The idea of going back up to grab it is repulsive to me. I cannot deal with it. I will suffer the cold but I need the escape.
I lift the bike off its stand and the unconscious checklist flows through me, muscle memory guiding my fingers as keys are turned, buttons flicked and fuel taps turned on. It all feels routine, part of the process. I pause for a moment and rest my hands on the handlebar, stretching my fingers out. The touch is familiar, the motorcycle an old lover. Neglected, taken for granted, unappreciated. Just another lover. I set my foot against the lever and depress it slowly, letting all the cogs and gears inside revolve, awaken from their cold reverie.
Settled and satisfied, I bring the lever down once more and with full force, willing the engine to turn over. It sleepily coughs, but dies down. I try again with the same result. An old stubborn lover. I have to coax it to life, cajole it, woo it gently before it gives way to me. The third time it sputters and hesitates but catches all the same. The engine thunders to life, deafening and vehement. The sound reverberates across the empty basement, echoing along the walls, this mechanical chorus that heralds my coming. The rest is a blur as I leave the gray coffin behind me and hit the open road.
At 3 AM, the world is a different place. The streets are as brightly lit as ever while the buildings are dark and gloomy. Move 5 hours in either direction and the hum of concrete reality drowns out the futility of existence. Cars packed in, people milling about. Insignificant specks of life moving towards an inescapably mundane and prosaic doom,urged by society to seek a life that begins and ends as a lie. But right here, at 3 AM, the world succumbs to glorious insanity.
It belongs to the madmen and the dreamers, the rot of existence that gives the rest of you that fake sense of entitlement, of superiority. I cherish the dark night, it's boundlessness, the endless freedom, its innate fear. Even as I twist the throttle harder,driving the bike harder, making it roar fiercely into the cold, I cannot drown out the beating of my own heart as the adrenaline rushes. The cold cuts in as I cut the engine off. The wind whistles in my ears, whispering her secrets and caressing my skin. It dies down as I slow. Now all I hear is the clicking of the wheels before they come to a stop.
My hands are practically numb,but my skin is fire.
I dismount and lean against the frame of the bike,looking around and trying to find my bearings. I've only followed the road and seek to find where it has brought. What a perfect metaphor for life. A perfect accident of thought and action culminating in such a beautiful way of looking at a stupid mistake.
I toy with the lighter,flicking it on and off as I lose myself in my thoughts. I've lost all flavor for cigarettes. Marlboro Red would love to see me dead. I reach for them all the same. It's cold dead kiss offers me no redemption that I never sought in the first place. There is no pleasure,no joy; only the bad habit of a previous life,a younger man. Like haunting memories, I am still bound to it and it to me.I seek from it no salvation I have a right to ask for. But still I find myself reaching for another shade of Red.
I hurt myself everyday,just to remember how much i love her. The clothes she gave me,the keepsakes. The little things. Every street,ever nook and cranny of this city,of my life is a memory; a scar waiting to be ripped open. And I force myself to remember,to reach back through time and conjure up every single detail,every single moment,every single strand of hair fallen on her face.I force myself to remember,because what if I forget. What if i forget this feeling,the tightness across my chest. What if I forget what it feels like? What if I never feel it again.
I have lost all flavor for her. I am bound to her only by the memories of a past life, a younger man. Naive and arrogant. I reach for for her anyway. She is cold death tuned to ash in my mouth. She is thoughtless,selfish and cruel. She offers with her right hand the promise of her love and with the left she takes away all pleasure and joy from me,from my soul. I am bound to her,as she is bound to me. She offers redemption,perfection and happiness. She gives me everything and nothing. She is ash. I find myself reaching for her all the same. She is just another shade of Red.
The glowing ember of my cigarette exposes me,lights me up under the dead sky as I burn,as I inhale. I am caught within the smoky haze of my own despair.Do your Gods bear witness? Do they care? Are they staring down iron sights? Am I condemned? Or do they condone my misery?
I shake my head and break the spell. I will not linger here,neither physically nor mentally. The cigarette slips from my fingers..Scars burn bright under the light of my own self loathing,her hooks dig deeper and drag me back into the abyss at the very thought of her. I mount once more and try to kick the bike to life. Her ghost haunts me,teases and tempts me to despair. But she is only one. All of my past and my mistakes haunt me. I am a collection of regrets and bad decisions. I bear the burden of Legion,harrying me at every turn,threatening to drive me to very depths of my own insanity. The engine refuses to turn over,despite my attempts.
The dam holding back my rage crumbles. I surrender to its mad frenzy,allow myself to be tossed and turned in the waters of this most purest of emotions. I grip the handlebar hard,hard enough to make my knuckles go visibly white even in the pitch dark that surrounds me. I kick the lever randomly and with no regard for the subtleties of its delicate constitution,with no thought for the welfare for this inanimate object that means so much to me. It's like an old lover,and I am abusive and destructive. I feel no affection,only overwhelming hatred and anger that it would deny me so; to stop me from getting what I want from it.
It howls as it comes alive,primal and wounded.
Gears click into place and the throttles drives us as we scream into the gloomy night. The motorcycle roars,the vibrations driving up my arm. My demons give chase as I strive to stay ahead; to not be overcome by the darkness at my heels. In the dim light ahead of me, I never even saw it coming. I hit the rough patch on the road quicker than my mind could register it. My reactions, dulled by the biting cold, give way to instinct. I struggle to control the bike,I feel the rear wheel lose purchase as I try to slam the brakes. I abandon the futile endeavor and try to ride through unscathed at full speed. Another metaphor. I fail to control myself and instead choose to drive towards my destruction head on and at full speed. The mistakes that define the human experience.
I pump the brakes at intervals and steady out. I slow down, I survive unscathed.The steady bass of the bike serenades me in the empty silence of the world. The drunken haze of rage and adrenaline fades away. I linger over what just happened, I let the road take me as I dive head first into myself.
I wash upon the shores of my own consciousness,as wave after wave of tidal disappointment pushes and pulls at me. I let it crash over me,seep into my rusted skin. Welcome to the sandy beaches of my mind,littered with broken syringes and the decaying corpses of my hopes and desires. The putrid stench invigorates me,drives me through this bizarre Hellscape. I face my true self,corrugated and defiled. I am a tapestry of fiction,interwoven with lies and anguish. I am smothered by the perversions I brought upon my righteousness, I am stifled by the infinity of my aberrations. I weave silken gold out of the fucking bullshit that spews forth from me. The putrid stench cannot lie.
I survive,unscathed. For the most part.
The open road. Its infinity of it is seductive. 3.4 million miles of it; broken,fractured and flawed. The cut and bleeding veins of a nation. I am a heartbeat travelling through,one among millions,significantly insignificant.
My hands rest over the handlebars, barely holding on, the steady drum line brings about the illusion of peace. I have found a measure of escape here. Despite my internal carnage, I cannot help but look around and revel in the beauty of life around me. Ignorance is charming. I sneer and look down at the masses of drones that have succeeded at failing in life with contempt in my heart. They can at least find some semblance of happiness within the ignorance. I have only Misery to keep me company, Misery will never leave me. Misery stands over my shoulder at every turn. The weight of disenchantment.
Misery is my final temptress. Cold and thoughtless,but a part of me yearns for her disinterest anyway. I can never go back to ignorance, so I choose to stay here in the throes of Misery. The concept of contentment is terrifying, that I would ever be happy with my position in life. I do not want that, so I find myself reaching for Misery. Or Madness. Why let the world define me and my wants and needs. My grasp on reality is tenuous at best, so why live in fear of acceptance of any sort. So give me Madness. I construct my own world within the dark confines of my mind, my playhouse of terror and fear. The IV drip of depravity feeds my delusions and the endless flow of pussy domination burns into my illusions. I am illustrious,monocle wearing Monopoly man, I am the hyphenated KitKat. I am non existent outside the world of Mandela and omnipresent within it. Let me live my life at 3 AM.
Let my world succumb to Insanity.
"Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! "
I giggle softly into the quiet air, my audience joins me. The show's nearly over. We'll be right back after these messages. I cackle into the morbid night while my bike softly grumbles. Lights shine from the other side of the road, barreling towards me, calling out. My fate is sealed. The idea of Life is repulsive to me. I lift my hands off my last love and let her guide me home.
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
