Biker on Franklin

Portland ME

Description

I was driving home and skated through a blinking red light. It was near midnight and there were no cars on the road so I did the "california roll" through the blinking red. You were biking past and I had to stop as you pulled in front of my boring-ass car. You hollered at me, then you paused, and you hollered at me again, as though at a manakin. I, a manakin behind a shopping-glass windshield, took a puff from my vape and failed to acknowledge you. You had a mask on, which somehow made the whole facade so much more pathetic. I drove on and wept for you, and for me. I drove on and wept for all of us. I had just recently watched I Heart Huckabees and so I wept for you and for me and for all of us. And I felt so sorry. I should have stopped. But my heart has been worn sore by years of heartache and sorrow. And I wanted to go home. And I should have stopped. I could have stopped in that dead, cold, stupid night and given a friendly wave to say "yes, please, your way is now". But I didn't. I was selfish and cruel and numb. And I pulled ahead with my dumbass 2-ton steel machine as you were biking home from work, or from your girlfriend's, or from a night out. I could have stopped and helped a fellow human being in our slow, morbid wriggle toward death, and helped to make it a little more joyful. And I just wish I could express to you that I am sorry that I failed in this. I'm sorry and I wept for myself, and I wept for you, and I wept for all of us.