I’m keeping up a writing journal to catch up on dusty old talents before my last semester at college when I’ll be taking a more intense creative non-fiction course. Here’s a little something from it.
At the time I was really hating cigarettes, and I got into a bike accident.
It is grease and oil and grime stuck on my fingers. It is caught between the ridges and valleys of my skin and doesn’t come out. It is a black splotch that was a black spot but thinned out like dirt on white socks stretched out.
The ride is too long and too cold so I take the train home. I feel like a lazy asshole. I get off at my stop. and start to briskly ride home but there’s no hurry. I don’t consider myself a “biker” but am fairly avid. If I ride to work it’s 20 miles round trip. In a nutshell I’m comfortable with riding very fast down any given street.
It smells and makes food taste bad. It makes those who love me pity me and passively act upon it. It makes them uncomfortable which would be cool if I was 13 or in the 1950’s but now it seems pathetic. Then I feel pathetic. I’d like another.
I recently got the bike fixed and I think that’s what’s so irritating about the whole thing. I didn’t get seriously injured and what maims I have will heal and fade. Walking with a bruise is very little, comparatively.
She hates it when I smoke and I think that’s what gets me the most. When I feel guilty around the one person who I should always feel comfortable with, there’s a problem. She doesn’t try to stop me and that only makes it worse.
I stood up and pedal for no particular reason. Less secure, sure, but somehow more rewarding like getting the timer on my toaster just right. But with this my weight shifts or my feet slip or my grip slackens and I veer violently rightward. The amount of thought that goes through my head is staggering as i spot the tire I’m about to hit and map how I will fall and how the bike won’t be in good shape. I see the color of the car and wonder if it’s the shade of red that is pervious to scratches and if the owner sees me and prays for something not to happen. I think softly that praying is far too passive of an action to change anything.
The cost doesn’t matter, I’m not the kind of guy who vocally doesn’t worry about money but it is certainly well within my budget. It’s not the addictiveness even, or the way I look forward to one at the end of the day.
I felt the bike stop like you feel the outcome of a physics question.
It’s the way my lip smells of dead-earth and soot after a square in the rain.
When I fall it’s all at once. In a blurred haste I see my glasses fly off and hit the ground with a subtle plastic click.
It’s the way I feel nauseous after one in the morning.
I’m not sure what hurts first but my first guess is everything. The bike idles in the crevasse of the wheel well and the street is a silent patch of black water.
It’s the way my dad talks about how hard quitting is without ever mentioning me.
I pick myself up and walk my bike home.
It’s the way that it still tastes just as bad and makes me regret everything I’ve become and everything I’ll be if I keep smoking. It’s the fact that it’s killing me and making me fat. It’s the way nothing seems to get better with them.
I walk up the 3 flights to my apartment. I badly need a beer and a camel light.