Epilogue
The rain is turning to sleet and I’m driving too fast.
Need to calm down. To slow down.
But something warns me.
Derek, don’t reduce speed too fast. Don’t.
When I hit the deep puddle of water I’m aware I’ve lost all traction. The tires have no grip. The moment for caution is behind me, I’m nothing but flesh and bones straddled over machinery, and my hands gripping the bike handles won’t stop the panicked steel stallion under me. I’m skidding at a speed that will only be controlled by a collision and now I know I was once an imaginative child with a stutter, that I grew hardened but never hopeless, that I read, watched, listened, learned, ingested, digested, drank, slept, worked, studied, ran, walked, jumped, ached, cried, laughed, observed, questioned, doubted, believed, fell,
