I was maybe flying in the air for
five seconds. But that would be silly. Less than two seconds I guess would be
the most accurate count, but if you had been in my shoe, in my shirt, with a
leather jacket over it—if yours had been the head in my full-face helmet,
you’ll know it actually seemed like years had passed while I was up there
flying in the air. But let’s say it was five seconds.
Riding
gloves should be written in the bible of motorcycle riding. I almost always
wore a pair. There were maybe two times I could remember when I didn’t—the first
had been that one time when I had to ride bare-handed because my gloves stank
of dog piss and I had to wash and hang them up for days. James Corden, my dog,
found them on the floor and, I don’t know, maybe saw them like a fire hydrant. Fortunately,
I was on a long vacation from work then, so I had no valid reasons to get out
of the house and burn doughnuts on the roads, save for that one instance when
my wife, whom I had been suspecting of being unfaithful to me with some
douchebag at her office, screamed at me into submission, and I was left with no
choice but to lift my ass and pick up our little daughter from school. But that
had been the only instance in that whole stretch of rest days I had. The rest,
I let her go and pick Minnie up herself.
Not
that I was a bad father. I love Minnie. I do. I care for her. I certainly don’t
want her to get home from school all by herself—she’s only nine. But my wife,
screaming at me like that, like it was the only obligation I have for little
Minnie and implying that I can’t even do it? I took offense from it then. It
seemed it, it was what was in my head then, after I had brought my daughter
home and had been left to ponder on it all—when I am left with my thoughts,
that’s when my head actually functions. And that was my conclusion—she can’t
scream at me like that. I am the father of the house, I provide for the both of
them. I need to be respected, I need to be left alone when I am on my rest day—I
can’t ride my bike without my riding gloves!
The
second time I rode my bike without donning a pair happened just a while ago. A
second ago, in fact. Technically, I am no longer riding my bike if I am already
afloat in the air at the moment. While I was thinking about that first time and
what-not that I just related, a second had passed already since I started
flying off of my motorcycle. I knew it would be a violent landing once this
whole five-second trip was through. A couple of broken bones at least—more than
a couple I’m sure. Spots where skin would be peeled off—particularly on my
legs, what with me wearing just a pair of shorts. Bruises. Blood loss. Loss of
consciousness, maybe. But at the least I could give myself an assurance that
when later I’d land on the asphalted ground, there would not be a serious
damage to my head, and the gray matter inside it. I had my helmet to save me
from that. I had to trust it. It should do the job, with the ridiculous price
tag it came along when I bought it, it should. It was the hip helmet, it was
the bomb! If you have it on while you drive the roads, you are the Ghost Rider
incarnate. Yet now I had to spend the second second of my current trip thinking and thinking sure this expensive
piece of shit could absorb all the momentum of the impact once I’d finally
crash on the ground for the boom.
Then
the succeeding second suddenly I spent on the thought of my wife. Before all
the doubts, before all the suspicions of infidelity, before I looked at her and
looked at her like she was less a living thing than James Corden, I used to
look at her like she was the Crab Nebula. There was love at the sight of her. She
had seemed to me the sun I would gladly agree to collide with and live out the
rest of my mortal seconds in such beautiful disaster. When I married her, I
knew I married a piece of classical music, a conglomeration of stardust just
roaming around the universe for billions of years waiting until I was ready to love.
She had been the comeliest little space traveler this side of paradise. I knew
little about the chance of her stardust elegance fading away in time.
Now
she seemed to me a stranger. The day unfortunately arrived when I found myself
waking up and asking, “Who is this woman sleeping in my bed, eating on my
table, watching my TV? Who is this alien slowly sucking me into her own vortex
of strange components where I’m sure nothing goes along but despair and hatred?”
I realized I was living with a foreign entity where no dog-piss-on-my-riding-gloves
could make me want to stay at home forever.
She
had been the reason why I was compelled to ride my bike today despite not
having my riding gloves—this for the second time. The intel that involved a
motel room and an hour or two of illicit fluid exchange, and the Ghost Rider
was off along the trails, ready for the climax and denouement of this once
magical fairy tale to be amalgamated into one seamless scenario. But make no
mistake, I wouldn’t be there to get my wife, I wouldn’t be there to unleash
whatever I was supposed to unleash with the supposed celestial pang of jealousy
I was supposed to have in my heart. I wouldn’t even be there to kill anybody. I
would be there because I wanted to end things with her all while catching her
red-handed, clothes-less in bed with another man. I pictured out a scene where
every hateful word came only from me, because where would she ever pick the
slightest right to talk her side of the story while she’s wallowing in a fresh
iteration of her sin?
But
that was all out of the question now. The only room I’d be finding myself in
after this journey aloft would be the emergency room. But I could accept it. I
had no choice. Instead of the explosive scenario I planned to have in the motel
room, I guess I would have to resort to a calmer approach. When she would be
standing there beside me on the hospital bed, that’d be the time to tell her
it’s all over between us. I wouldn’t be able to unleash any vehement tirade, or
explanation. I knew that already. That moment would be a peaceful nova of what
was once had been the only sol my earthly heart was orbiting.
Three
seconds had passed, and now’s the time I realized that while the helmet may
prevent my skull from cracking open, there may still be the chance that I’d
slip into some serious aftermath in my brain, perhaps some case of amnesia.
I’ve seen movies with this kind of plot. And I worship movies enough to not
dismiss the possibility—may it be majestically infinitesimal—that I would end
up waking to a world where everything would seem new to me. I’d lost every
memory I have from when I could stretch it all the farthest to these last five
seconds before I hit the ground. I couldn’t wander along with this chance and
spend these last precious seconds of consciousness remembering things that are mired
with misery and hate. If I should slip into the void of unconsciousness and
open my eyes in a once-again uncharted world, I would rather take with me to
the edge the memories from when I feel the most of Earthly joys.
Minnie.
My little princess Minnie. She was all the brightest star left in this part of
space since everything fell out with my wife. A nine-year old cosmic creation
that shone the most beaming of light waves since she was born, since she was
laid on my arms the first time, since the first solar flare that came out of
her eyes astounded me and conjured in me a soul that was more than just riding
gloves, motorcycles, and interstellar choice of words. Minnie was born a star
and her gravity was more than I could bear. She pulled me into her own slice of
the universe and kept me there revolving, rotating, and making my own place in
the world the only place to be in.
As
Minnie was growing up, she became even more adorable. And when the animosity
between me and my wife started, I was able to focus all my care and endearing
to her, and that had been when the realization that only Minnie could bring
true happiness to me became entire. No one else came close to my heart than my
daughter. My Minnie. My little Minnie. Only two days ago I bought her a new
stroller bag, pink-colored, and when she first saw it, I could see solar flares
bursting out of her eyes and her joy was a contagion I was wholly reduced to magical
infection.
The
last second. I never thought this to be the part where I’d reconsider every
decision I had been planning to undertake, the one particularly with my wife. I
knew the glimmer of her cosmic constitution had become dimmer and dimmer
already, and becoming dimmer and dimmer still by the second, but she was still
my little Minnie’s mother. Every bit of stardust that made up my Minnie’s
picturesque existence came from the woman I married. And I don’t want my little
Minnie to grow up within the remnants of an apocalyptic cosmic system. I knew
that despite all the hatred and all the ill wills that had slowly severed the
orbit my wife and I once had of each other, everything could still be
compressed into a singular chance at reconciliation. And in getting through
this accident, after this five-second trip up in the air, we would turn things
around for the better, for the sake of this share of celestial space we had
borrowed from the universe.
And
then a second of darkness. I had finally crashed.
I
could hear sirens. I could hear people talking. I could hear someone, near,
maybe stooping on the ground beside me—must be the emergency response team.
“Just
keep still, sir. You’ve been in an accident. Help is coming. Keep still.”
I
could feel the heat of the asphalted ground where I had crashed. The visor of
my helmet had been broken and detached, and I could see from about five meters
away the motorcycle that I had made a diving board of. And despite the apparent
intensity of the accident as a whole, I could feel no major or tremendous
discomfort anywhere in my body—that maybe I had just made it through this
entire tragedy unscathed. Maybe a few bruises and scratches but overall, I
couldn’t feel any searing pain or realize any part of my body that I can’t poke
the nerves of. It could be that the shock was overriding the pain—that was a
possibility. But I tried to get on my feet, and somehow I managed it. All my
bones were left intact, at least. I could hear the man talking me out of doing
what I was planning to do, but I needed to know. I took off my helmet, trying
to see better what I had just seen earlier when I was on the ground. I had seen
a pink stroller bag, lying near the motorcycle.
It
couldn’t be. I had told her not to go home on her own. That I’d be picking her
up today. My little Minnie, my dear little Minnie, she shouldn’t be crossing
the street on her own—she was only nine.
And
my star, she was lying there, on the same asphalted ground where I had crashed
into like a miserable meteorite, peaceful, bathed among the clouds of stardust that
she had emitted. And it didn’t make sense. It didn’t make sense at all.
(end)
