End

Written 56-A04 [2024-07-24], Edited 56-A04 [2024-07-24]

Image credit: Twitter Twemoji

The rains had stopped mere minutes ago. The pavement still shone with a thin layer of water as by bike wheeled past. My legs suddenly felt like they were strapped to weights. It must be an include, some small percentage of imbalance I’d hardly notice in a leisurely stroll.

My gloved hands squeezed the handbreaks. Really need to get one of those phone-holding accessories, I thought. Then I remembered I had bought such a convenience but forgot to install it. Whatever.

I stood looking at my phone on the bike path. This section of the route, where I had to go through the park, was always confusing. No simple grid of perpendicular roads, only the organic curves of paths between trees. Children played on the swings and slides. The elderly sat on benches and at tables with chessboards. And the young adults, caught in-between these stages of life, biked in and out of the part in a single minute.

Never stopping to smell the air after the rain, or to point at a squirrel, or to jump in the mud. Always racing to an end somewhere else. Unless, like me, they were totally lost.