Sunday, November 22, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
i used to write pt. 1
This is me, cycling up Fort street for the seventh time this afternoon. I'm trying to self-induce a hallucination. Extreme physical exhaustion in hot conditions coupled with the deprivation of water is usually known to be complimented by mental slippage, I've read. That's what happens to people who see mirages in the desert. I only have a relatively sunny day to work with though, so some extra effort is going to be required. This is me, sweating and about to pass out, but I'm finding it hard getting into the right mindset. I believe you're supposed to really concentrate on whatever it is you want to see or have. It's like the guy in the desert who's dying of thirst and suddenly sees an oasis. Except now that I think about it, it's not so much desire that he's feeling than absolute, desperate need for water. I think that's the part I'm having trouble figuring out.
I push harder on the pedals, applying all my weight onto my right leg, then my left. Right-left-right-left-right. The gravel beneath me crackles with heat as the two wheels rotate agonisingly, squashing into the ground's roughness and releasing the scent of summer friction. I imagine the bike as a rolling pin, elongating my silhouette stretched out on the road before me. I keep expecting to ride right over it, leaving it stuck on the road behind me like a translucent piece of black silk cut-out that's about to be lifted off any moment by a stray breeze. I stand up now, in an attempt to salvage my decreasing speed. I can feel the acidic soreness building up in my thighs and know there's going to be plenty of fresh blisters on my palms. I always grip too tight going uphill.
I let my mind wander to distract myself from the aching in my limbs. My thoughts are on shuffle and stop at a conversation I had last week with the cute guy next door when I went over to borrow his bike pump.
"Hey Liz, what's your favourite thing about summer?" He is on his knees rummaging about in the garage and looks over his shoulder at me. It's an odd question to suddenly throw out, but his playful smile makes it casual and inviting.
"Oh, um...my favourite thing? I guess uh, the weather. Especially here, I mean." I stumble, cringe and mentally kick myself for the original answer, but he's busy thinking about his own.
"I think the best part about summer is making bonfires on the beach." He stands up, hands me the pump and flashes a grin at me, expecting some kind of enthusiastic affirmation which I am unable to give because I have never made a bonfire in my life except in Grade 10 chemistry class when Sarah and I piled up our used matches and tried to light them using the bunsen burner.
"Oh, that must be fun," is all I can say and I stand there stupidly, hating how unexciting of a person I am. The weather, for god's sake. I should have just made something up.
I'm starting to feel a dull pain at the front of my head between my eyes. It must be from dehydration --that means it's beginning to work. Any moment now, I'm going to go into a state of delirium. Nobody will notice though, because I will just keep going on my bike. Physically, everything's supposed to function as normal and you shouldn't able to tell I was going through a fantastical episode, just looking at me. I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere.
A crow caws above me and it reminds me of a few days ago when it was unbelievably windy and I was walking home. The sky was heavy, weighed down with ominous grey clouds that hid what could have been a brewing storm. As I rounded the corner to the house, head down and arms wrapped tightly around my jacket, I was met with a strange and awful scene. There were some ten, fifteen crows on the front lawn, just standing and hopping about. I stood there, glued to the spot and just stared at them and their cold, hard beaks and beady eyes. I had images of Hitchcock's The Birds in my head against the Psycho soundtrack. Any moment, they were going to attack me and pluck my eyeballs out. I was certain of it. It didn't even feel real, but I could see myself already, sprawled out on the grass dead and socketless with them picking at my clothes. I'm not a superstitious person at all, but that was a deathsending right there if I ever saw one.
My mind is going all over the place, which is not what I want. I should be focusing on the heat and fatigue and pain, not browsing around in my memory bank. I fix my eyes on the cluster of houses in the distance. Their outlines waver in the sweltering air but no palm trees materialise. I knew this was a stupid idea, and feel even worse for thinking that it might be stupid enough to work. I squeeze my eyes shut for 3 seconds but nothing's different when I open them again. I try 5 seconds next, then 7, then 9 before the loud horn of a car from behind jolts me awake and I see that I'm practically riding horizontally across the street. I steer sharply back to the side of the road, take a right turn onto one of the neighbourhood streets and suddenly there is a truck coming right at me, blinding headlights and all, and its long blaring horn and scraping tires and my screams are one and holyfuckinghell I'm a goner, I`m dead, I'm going to be turned into pulp.
*
They have it wrong when they switch to a slow-motion perspective in movie scenes that involve a freak or dramatic accident. To me, everything was going twice as fast and I was already seeing myself being crushed. Whilst my mind was filled with the single, elongated word "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck" though, my body must have gone into automatic drive and narrowly maneuvered out of the way, because here I am, still cycling and still screaming like a maniac but ohmygod I'm alive, I'm breathing. I was scared so shitless just moments ago that it is only now that I realise it's raining -pouring, in fact. When did it start? The day has suddenly become darker, too. I look up and it's one massive grey smoky cloud filling up the entire sky, and a million columns of raindrops are splattering on me and the road. The road. That stupid driver was on the wrong side of the road. The psycho, he almost killed me.
Oh god, that means I'm on the wrong side right now, and probably about to have another near death experience with an approaching vehicle. Shit. Just as I think this though, I become aware that the cars in my lane are actually going in the same direction as me. Then I realise I don't have the slightest clue where I am. As my mind gradually gathers back its lucidity and the shakiness in me subsides, I see that I am riding up some winding road of a hugely steep hill, its curve preventing me from seeing much ahead to where it leads to. All I know is that I'm lost, but wait, I've been on this road before. A low thunder ripples through the air, and suddenly I am drenched through with a wave of nostalgia. As if on cue, the 69K minibus drives past me and then there is no doubt about it all.
This is me in penetrating humidity, soaked to my bones, cycling on the left side of the road. This is me, riding my way up to the school I spent seven years loving and loathing. And this is me, caught in a Hong Kong summer rainstorm and sticking my tongue out to taste the warm fat drops that are probably poisonous but I don`t care because I am in my oasis and everything is fucking fantastic.