It’s A Cycling Accident
Eastbound traffic races north. Straight up. Deadlocked discordance on a normally noiseless street. Almost every auto that overtakes your sustained, sweaty, suffering passes dispassionately. Though sometimes there’s cyclistricide in an operator’s eyes. Crane to see two UPS trucks parked back-to-back in the cycling lane. Choose the sidewalk or choose the road. Risk your money or risk your life. Decide.
The rumble and sway of the brawling V-8. Emanates. Like a Tom Waits song on repeat. The engine’s heat breathes down your neck adding five degrees to the moistureless day. Five feet too close, the raised chrome-and-rust bumper sits almost on your seat. A lone-loco-local losing his mind revs the motor menacingly. You took the lane. It will be five seconds until he can turn right. You look to the driver on your left but he just shrugs. Not his fight.
Safe behind the painted white line. The ever-bigger cars and trucks blow through. Tight to the inside. Guess their speed and size by the vacuum of noise before they phase by. Know that it’s your fault. What is? Everything. Does a driver swerve into the cycling lane? You’re Greg Knapp and you’re fifty-eight. It’s going to take you five days to die in a hospital. Does a driver fling open his door? You’re Mike McIntosh and you’re fifty-five. Dead at the scene. Either way, a “cycling accident.”
Deep breath or blind rage.
Hope for change.