FLASH FICTION:SO I WATCHED the Cookstown 100 and the camera and the whine of the bikes sped me down country roads like I was there. One of the riders did a highside – man and bike separated and crashed like two lovers after passion. He rolled and picked himself up.
I necked another Heineken picturing myself helmet-in-hand stepping up for my trophy. I finished off my beer then headed down the club. I bumped into Hammy from Shorts.
“Don’t walk in with me. They’ll think I’m going for a drink with me Da,” He said. “Go and shite,” I replied.
A good night was had with the lads from the Tool Room where I was made redundant. Sauntering past my ex’s gaff knowing fine rightly my bike was in her fella’s shed while they were away in Lanzarote, her eyes shrank me again: “He did you a favour buying your bike.”
I was down that side passage, like a rat up a spout, cupping my hands on his dirty shed window in the moonlight. She’s a looker, my bike, but I could see he hadn’t washed or polished her.
I strapped on his crappy lid, fishing in my pocket for my spare key.
Braking and kicking her down the gears I peeled off the slip road and on to Shane’s Hill. I blasted along the half-mile stretch of country lane, attacking each bend: correct entry speed, wee nudge of counter-steer.
Leaning over, gliding through until the exit point, opening the throttle. The back wheel squirmed and shot me out off one corner on to another bend. The sheer precision of it!
On up the hill the noise of the engine screamed through the throaty exhaust. I gagged from the stench of fertilizer in the air. The blood banged in my ears when the rear tyre slid under me.
It gripped again. The bike shuddered. She sent me bolt upright, hard and startling, lifting me up and over. “Easy!” I told myself and my limbs went loose. “Let go,” I told myself, but it was like being tasered. I was out of it.
I heard the impact – the bike ripping through hedge, the whack of my helmet on hard ground.
I came to, lying on my back on the road like I’d landed in another life.
The road shifted. It spun about me.
I closed my eyes and let go.
I came back. Heaviness. Then panic. Then pain. I moved my hands, then my feet, my arms, my legs. I pushed at the base of my helmet. My hand kept missing. I heard a guy say,
Leave it, man. The ambulance will be here soon.
People stood about. I was feeling a bit high. One wee lad pointed his phone at me, saying, He went over the top! Like somethin on Moto GP!
I felt young when he said that. I felt like my head had been cleaned out with degreaser, making room for someone better – a contender.
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