Bikes Not Rockets by Elly Blue

Author:Elly Blue
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Microcosm Publishing LLP
Published: 2018-12-16T02:48:34+00:00

The Tower

Elly Blue

It’s almost too cold to ride this morning. I stand, doing my deep breathing and shuffling my feet with small, alternating stomps as Clara wheels the bike out of the shed, pumps two pounds of air into each tire, and checks the brakes, hubs, cables, pedals. There’s never an issue, but she does it with thorough yet quick attention, her breath pooling around her in the frosty air. Even when she stands and hands the bike to me, she avoids my eyes, all according to protocol. If I succeed in my training, I will never again make eye contact with another human. An especially hard shiver rocks me.

It’s precisely 4:45 when I grasp the handlebars, throw my leg over the back, and push off. I keep a steady clip of 18 miles per hour according to the dinky handlebar speedometer. The extra effort going up the slight slope, the winding of the electric fence next to me, the constant slight attention of dodging larger rocks in the dirt track as I go — it’s all as automatic to me as breathing now, or the rest of my daily routine of study and exercise back in the tower. These morning bicycle workouts are the one time of the day I can let my mind be free. Sometimes, I just let it roam over the fields, noting the grazing cows, the clouds, the temperature, the inner workings of my body and breath. Other days, I live out past scenarios—happy or shameful, wondering or infuriated—or future ones, fuzzily imagined snippets of my life in the stars. Today, it’s so cold my mind retreats into the smallest part of itself, its clockwork moving so subtly my conscious self can barely grasp it. The bulk of my attention is on simply moving so that the organism that is my body can stay warm enough to continue living.

Which is why I don’t notice the obstacle in the road until the bike comes to an abrupt halt, flinging me over the handlebars. Dazed, I jump to my feet, reflexively aware of the need to keep moving. And, more important, the need to be okay, unharmed, and back on schedule so there is no appearance of incident or wavering from my goal. I begin to mentally and visually check each part of me—fingers, hands, forearms, elbows. As I turn my head to check my left shoulder, I catch the dark shape in the corner of my eye, which interrupts my protocol. My bike is sprawled caddywompus in the road, and under it a crumpled form that—yes, it’s a human shape. Not moving. I walk towards it, a hard core forming in my stomach and rising to my throat.

The figure is oddly familiar, and then I realize—she is wearing my clothes, she has my build and height. I check under the hats and balaclavas and mask for a pulse that isn’t there and see pale skin, a wisp of blonde hair. She’s not me, I think to myself, almost say out loud.

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