The Dish and the Spoon - 3

Distant, she had said. That is what she said she feels I am these days.

I watched the ground some as I chewed these thoughts in my mind, trying to process everything. Maybe I was, probably I was. It was something I hated to face, didn't want to believe.

The beads of asphalt continued to race past beneath me as I churned the pedals of the bicycle, moving ever onward. I squinted back up into the freezing winds, gripping the rubber of the handle bars tighter with fingers that were turning blue. The weather had grown older since I left the coffee shop and had matured from nipping to biting. The winds blowing helped neither the temperatures nor my ride, but it hardly mattered. Nothing really seemed to be helping right now except every step in the right direction.

As usual, that was the real question.

I looked back into the sky but still couldn’t yet see it. As late as it was growing, it was still too early. It would not be long, though. It wouldn’t be long.

It’s been a long time, she had said.

I sighed. It hurt. I was in no state to be mulling this over. I was tired and weak and sore, but then again, I also had a job to do. My eyes hurt, but were no longer tired. My body ached but was no longer dead.

I leaned to the right, into the turn as I just caught the light.

It wouldn’t be long now at all.












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