My Thrill Ride

So one busy Monday, I’m riding my bike in rush hour traffic. Probably full of Monday morning blues. It’s a wide street; somehow I have drifted right into the middle. Although I’ve said rush hour, it is pretty fast. I’m feeling the wind in my hair, happy, smiling. Until…

First thing I see as I look down at my bike is dust. Slowly as I look up to my RVMs, I see strands of web. At the next traffic signal, I remove these webs. At least those I can reach. It was a moment like those in horror films with an unsuspecting prey.

My mind starts ticking only when the light turns green. If there were spider webs, there should be spi…

Suddenly, the master of the house I thrashed comes up out of nowhere. I think, ’It’s probably just taking a breath of fresh air’. But then it looks at me; through its cold, calculating eyes. Snapping its teeth.

JUMP! It’s on my speedometer. Now I’m scared. “Spiders! Why did it have to be spiders?”

The spider’s happy. It knows a jumbo meal, when it sees one. I can’t stop the bike, since I’m in heavy moving traffic. I can’t use my hands, never knowing when I’ll have to brake. I try blowing it off, it only comes closer.

I feel powerless. Can’t whack it, can’t blow it. The rain has already got my pants wet, so I can’t change anything there either. Suddenly the guy in front of me screeches to a stop. I have to do the same, only I do it with my eyes closed. When I open them its gone.

Where? The same question pops in my mind. Did it jump of my bike? Or is it crawling inside my clothes. My mind is set on the latter, but I reach home safe and sound.

I didn’t see it later, but I know its out there somewhere. I still have the nightmares.

The Pilgrimage

First of all, I’d like to start by saying I worked hard on the title. In the end, The Pilgrimage, ended up sounding better than ‘There And Back Again : A Fatty’s Tale’.

Now it all started with me jonesing for a fix of some good chicken. Since my love of fried chicken drove me, I decided to get some KFC. But, alas, with my increasing amount of fowl foods in the last week, it was hard to convince my parents for it.

Finally we reached a middle ground: I’d get my fix of KFC, if I was ready to walk all the way to the nearest franchisee. Now from the outside it seemed easy enough, but my parents had called my bluff. The fact is ‘walking’ is all greek to me. And any form of physical exercise is my buzzkill.

Yet, naturally I took up the task. It seems greatness was today, thrust upon me. After at least an hour of procrastinating, I had set out.

Now its usually customary to put your best foot forward. Both of mine seemed similar all around, so I started with the left one. For the first few minutes, it wasn’t quite as bad. I felt light, this seemed easy enough. Hell, I could do this all day.

But now, it was getting monotonous. I was mildly tired. My feet were well set in their rhythm. My body wasn’t too burned out. But my mind was suggesting that I had proved my point, I could walk if I wanted to.

But like all my favourite heroes, I was prepared to see the task through. Finally I reached my destination. I was so happy to have finally got there. There was this funny feeling I had. I felt healthy. The walk was good for me. I decided fried chicken would spoil that and turned around and left.

Psych!

I went inside and was trapped in the Saturday evening rush. After some time of deciding what I wanted and buying it, I began the return journey.

Now my body was a bit tired, my mind excruciatingly so. But I completed my journey and am sitting now eating some well earned spoils.