After an initial hesitance,  I motioned towards the bike leaning charmingly by the fence of the park. No, that’s not how it was. Let me start again. I was walking home. Long road, crunchy gravel, listless night and startling footsteps. Bus to the train to the car to the side to the, what? If dusk was the golden hour, then this was about on the level of emeralds. Deep purple skies and an ever so slightly damp road under my bare feet. Don’t ask. I’m still a bit hazy on the details.

I’d finally decided to detour through the side street. Good move, yeah, I know. The park began. The grating grilling iron fence stood out as though sitting on the base of a pop up book. I half expected the ground under me to start turning, the camera to zoom out to a visual of me walking on a turning wheel based on said book. You know the kind I mean. Like the one in that song, where that girl singer-songwriter person plays the guitar and sings with a spring and a smile echoes on her lips and she knows exactly how much to part those lips as she sighs. I begun to whistle.

Heard a rumbling sound in the distance and assumed it was going to rain. I hoped it would rain. My feet were getting a bit sore from the still hot tarmac. How could the road retain so much heat after so long? I don’t know, I remember reading somewhere about how cities are like heat sinks and that the temperature in the heart of a city can be even a couple of degrees hotter than further out in the less dense areas. Who would have thought that we would have concrete sponges. Seems almost fitting though that the heart of the city would be hotter than the outskirts. Like a pulsating core. The city would then become a tacky metaphor for life and how at the center of our beings lies some red loving. Screw that. I waited for that rain instead.

A gush of wind and leaves and fury spun me suddenly and I was left wondering what just happened. I steadied myself against the fence stakes only to be facing a plain bike about ten stakes down. It’s reflectors blinked blankly at me. I was being looked up and down, sized up, judged, weighed and graded by it. I was not pleased. With a just as sudden change of attitude the bike slumped casually against the fence. It seemed I passed. This is where I tried to start earlier. Because, really, it was a rather charming bike. No seriously, I feel that really is the best way to describe it’s behaviour. Charming. I felt motioned towards. So I did motion towards. I approached it with a slight backstep. As in my feet dragged behind, unwilling participants in my attempts at curiosity.

I slowly grasped the left handlebar, and the tassels swayed softly in the wind. Ran my hand down the cool metal, sleek, green tinge. The seat sprung up and purred quietly. Wide wheels yawned below and rolled a bit, gently under the pressure of my touch. A quick white basket was strapped smartly up front and what seemed to be a lone speaker, apparently on, was snugly tucked into the corner of it. I tugged at the bike a bit, and it willingly turned along. Pushing it up the gradual slope, I was urged on by it. Now walking, jogging, running, bolting tumbling after it up the hill, pulling away from the side walk and park to the centre of the wide split road.

As I hit the top, my feet swung into the air, right slipping swiftly on the first pedal, left leg flying over the back of the seat, landing fervently onto the other. The gears swung as they pleased, the bike churned ahead. I was the rumble. The furious turning of wheels and person perched atop.

I was the flight. This is your captain speaking, we are now cruising at ten thousand miles above Oh-My-Happiness. As we finally left the park, I fingered through my pockets looking for something to gnaw on. Thinking is always better with something to chew on. Even thoughtless thinking. My careless pedaling was subconscious and I followed as the bike led. Wandering, meandering thinking. Balancing on the other hand is an issue when rummaging through yourself. Broken toothpick, found, discarded. I thumbed a music-player in my pocket and it conveniently snapped into the plugs on the speakers.

Found: One Player. Done.

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Definetely Done.

I was was the wind now.

“Though empires crumble to dust

and centuries lost in shadows,

the marble still sighs to the stars

‘I remember’ “

– Lover’s Gift I – Rabindranath Tagore

——————–

The weight of the memories are indescribable at best. Having a never ending depth and seem to stretch further back beyond the base of the eyes. They press upon the chest like a sleeper in the night. Sighing, softly, up rise, down fall. “Oh Remind Me,” Röyksopp infects the head with vaguely nostalgic words that echo as though they’ve always been there. These are the quiet hours, when nothing calls and the head runs dry. And full.

There are certain conversations that were meant to be remembered. They only occur so that you may retain the memory of that instance, that thought. You remember how you were both positioned, the expressions, the environment. The scent will linger in your mind, and you can swear that you can still feel how the wind rustled through the leaves on your skin on that strange afternoon. But you don’t necessarily remember the content of the conversation itself. That information seems, in retrospect, almost trivial and irrelevant. Like it was nothing but an excuse to have that memory. You may never recall what words were exchanged, or what ideas were born. And pity as that may seem, nothing can replace that ghostly remembarance. But you’ll never forget that that conversation did indeed take place. It will simply remain as one of those slipping sand memories you just keep grasping at.

Honesty; It’s the street dog that never died,

that lay afloat in the rising falling staying tide,

of floodwater stagnant, rooftops, smiled,

I played in the water, he whispers, I lied.

Away;

Staggering amounts of stardust have fallen upon large communities of hermits that sit quietly together, all alone in the vast wilderness. They were trying to remember the truth in their stories. The basis of their fabricated memories. Silently remembering. Earnestly, honestly, fervently trying. Unsettled reminiscing of all those half baked lives. Those frayed threads left dangling at the edge. The half filled vessels they forgot to tip out as they exit stage left.

Remind me,

Of times when we would dance.

From moonrise, till light crept in,

from fresh smoke, to stale bread.

“What is life? A madness. What is life? An illusion, a shadow, a story and the greatest good is little enough for all life is a dream…”

– Life is a Dream; Calderon de la Barca,

“Tell me what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life.”

– The Summer Day, Mary Oliver

The weight of memories are indescribable at best.

I bite my fingers as I think. My pupils fall black in the reflection of the mirror. The computer glows back and makes me tinge a blue. I think. I think.

———————————

Forest Folk; Type One

Sometimes I could swear that the roots of the worst are in the breath of the first.
The ones who still thirst live lives murkier than most.
The ones who still yearn feel the wind on their cheeks,
whirlpool of leaves, down by their feet,
smoke bubbles at their lips.

They’re in trouble.

They are
misty mumbling creatures.
Fumbling through latches, tumbling in grasses,
so long, it tickles their knees.

They are
slippery wily peoples.
Lingering on at night, darkening doorways,
so quiet, that echoes ring.

Not even
if they look softer than skin,
Seem tinier than
whimsical notions,
are lighter than being.

The roots of their hearts and their branches of thought
cling harder than I would to your hand in the dark.
Deceiving vice grip.

They are not just thirsty, hungering, yearning creatures.
They are clawing at awnings of rooftops above.
Desperately seeking something more than just love.
Actively taking whats more than their breath.
Silently shaking the leaves off the rest.

Sometimes I do swear they can be better than this,
seemingly bliss-
ful. Seeming amiss.
Seeming to be able
of more than a kiss
and run.

———————————