Bike Ride

She pulls the car into her driveway, tires squealing on the slick, dark pavement. She rushes upstairs, changes into shorts and a t-shirt, leaving her work clothes on the floor. She knows she has other things to do, laundry, e-mails, phone calls, it's dinner time. She knows and she doesn't care. Her hair is tied back, her helmet is strapped under her chin. Thick, cold drops fall out of the sky and onto her shoulders and she steers the bike out of the garage and closes the door behind her.

She begins to pedal. Finally, watching the yards tick by under her front wheel, she feels like she is moving. Like she is accomplishing something, like she is active. She follows the white road line with her eyes and her wheels. It's smooth and straight and linear, and she feels all of the scattered thoughts in her brain move into their places again. She picks up speed and the bike whirs under her. For the first time all day, she feels like she's taking up some space; cars give her plenty of the road. The loud, sqealing brakes are glorious after nine hours of inside voices. Instead of the ghost that moves silently through the shelves and collects its pay at the end of the week, she's roaring down the street, owning the street.

Time relinquishes its evil hold on her. As her skin beins to glow red, and her lungs begin to burn, and her head begins to ache, her body is returned to her as well. She can feel the gears in her hands, and the rain from the sky and the slop from the road. Every muscle in her legs, abdomen, back, and arms is taught - she can feel each one doing its part. Her legs run themselves off, and as she breaks over the last hill she slows into a coast. For the first time all day, she can breathe. Great, deep breathes that break like sobs out of her. Oxygen hits her starved brain. She picks up her head and finally looks up at the world, instead of down at the bottom of it. Varying shades of grey have been replaced by color. The trees were millions of greens, soaking up the wet like she was. Flowers burst out of lawns, house paint glittered. Even the dark road was not simply black.

And the day was behind her. One painfully long and dull day, slow and silent, could be checked off her calender. It lay back somewhere on the road like an empty, cast-off sock. After so many rented-out hours she had had one that belonged to only her. She had made noise, taken up space, returned to herself. For a few moments she glides down the quiet, damp streets. For a few moments, she forgets tomorrow.