Visceral
Eviscerate
It was all a dream
Except for this
The look on your face
We were on our first overnight ride out of town, back in the
days before airbnb, west to Nature's Nest, a farmhouse with lodging in Montrose. We
laughed, we lived the splendour of mutual affection, passionate and blissed.
The Luce Line was mostly an old railway line turned cinder track, through fields and woods, around lakes and marshes. Close to Watertown we took a road, wooded. The elation, and deflation, of the day and ride’s end approaching, the night's tenderness. In the twilight, a rabid dog comes running barking-mad at us. Come on my love, ride faster, come ON, we'll easily outrun it.
In an instant you were falling, we were side-by-side, me just ahead. I “saw”
you falling into my back wheel, your face into my gears. I reached out to try
to pull you away, couldn't hold you upright, and down to the ground, away from my turning wheel.
Instinctual, to save you, I thought. But the look of horrified betrayal on your
face, something I’ll carry to my grave. So aghast, left me questioning
myself. Of course the dog caught up with us when we stopped, and did us no
harm. But the flashing moment, did.
