A dead Canadian goose moulders against the curb on my way to work. I noticed it freshly killed last week and today it is almost gone, dismantled and rendered for carrion. So sad to see it last week with soft brown feathers fluttering in the wind of annoyed traffic revving to make the light. I wonder who hit it and how they felt, and if they cared. Did it ruin their day? Did it cause them to reel in momentary horror, like seeing your fingernail pulled back, un-moored from the quick and fleshy before bleeding?
We rode across the forest on Saturday, early but not early enough, out to the sinkholes. There’s been no rain for days and days so the water was settled and calm, clear and cold. Nobody was there, and we fell into the cold water one at a time, and told stories of Darin jumping from the top of the tree and collapsing a lung, and how Germans appreciate it when you speak English with a cartoonish German accent.
We lingered as long as we could, postponing the stifling march back across the forest, battling gravity, the sun, the sand, ignoring the folly of two and a half hours in the saddle for a twenty minute swim.
I got woozy, dizzy, and wondered what happens when you really can’t turn another pedal and you are somewhere in the woods without a cold coke in sight. I spoke up. I gave notice. I got help in the form of a salt capsule. A pittance, I thought. A kindness, a final communion, a placebo, but no solution. It made all the difference.
Juancho
Damn!! I was just discussing a roadie ride to swim at Wacissa, and recounted stories of my last cross-forest trip to blue sink, during same discussion. As usual, I’m talking, you’re doing.
Salt and water. They are life.
Ah. Excuse for carrying a bag of chips…
salt pills? Who were you riding with, a ’70s tennis phenom?
LOL…I have this kid…well, he’s in his 40’s…but he’s a believer in his bottle of salt and water with a little baking soda thrown in. Saves his dehydrated ass every time. He always has it with him in summer when he’s working.
Oh, hi Juancho. I’m Annie.