Rider

sometimes I don’t know
what to think
and
so
I don’t…
…better that way.

Sometimes a day passes gently, easily, like gossamer silk in a gentle breeze and sometimes it stops and starts in single moments, not joined up and unrelated… staccato.

Each different moment of that day is like a reminder to something or a reminder of something, only I don’t know quite what. It could be to show it’s best to be in a single moment and no more, no past, no future, just the now…the only moment that is real.

Real to the cyclist was the pain he felt, the shock and real his scream when the car hit him. He had not ever heard himself scream or was it the brakes of the car? And what of his bike? His beautiful bike he rode on this beautiful day…it lay crumpled now by the roadside. The ambulance flashing blue lights, police cars, people gathering, people staring, craning their necks out of cars passing, slowly, painfully and inside the ambulance they were working. And all there was, was the moment and the broken man the men were working on to save…

Lethal, roundabouts for cyclists…even if you wore your helmet and your gloves…less than the blinking of an eye, the moment from cycling, being to not being…a moment’s all, and that was all you had.

‘Would you like a cuppa duck’? is what she asked me every morning reaching for the teapot. Table set nice every day with a little flower in the little vase from Dartington Glass she’d found in the ‘seconds’. None of your teabag in the cup with a quick stir and a splash for her! The pot had to be warmed first and one of loose leaf for every cup and not forget one for the pot an’ all. She’d pour in just a little water on the leaves so the tea would mash and the fragrance was released. Five minutes and no more and then she’d fill the teapot with water still so hot it was still spitting! Mum knew exactly what she liked and she also knew the secrets of the brewing. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’… I soak you your prunes every night duck but I forgot last night, you’ll just have to have them as they are. Anyroad, they are quite soft, they are and they are pitted, so it alright really, in’t it… she nodded her approval to herself…they would be fine and do their daily trick. Not that they didn’t taste nice neither… ‘Toast and Marmite after’? Be all set then, won’t you. Tea’s a bit milky, next cup will be better duck…awright? Her smile embraced him and all the world, her hair was grey now, a little coarse but curlier than ever, long and quite thick still and hung about her shoulders in sleepytime ringlets, her face was lined, her bue eyes not as blue as they once were but when she smiled the sun rose…he loved her more with every day that passed and he dreaded the day when he would be alone…

…they worked hard to save him…

…sometimes I don’t know
what
to
think
and
so
I don’t…