Morning Ride

When the alarm went off he thought it was going to be just a typical day. It started like a typical day, taking the dogs out and lighting up his morning cigarette. Getting a feel for the weather, deciding if it’s still warm enough to ride, or if he has to take the car, looking to the sky to see if the stars are visible. Checking the weather report to see if it’s going to be a clear or rainy day. Clear skies, lows in the mid 40s, highs in the low 70s, a good day for a motorcycle ride. The only problem with riding to work and back is that you have to stop in the middle and actually work. Ah well, work is the curse of the drinking class.

With the dogs back inside give the cats a scoop of food, same as everyday. The smell of fresh brewed coffee fills the kitchen, a mug for now, the rest into the thermos for work, same as every day. Moving rapidly around the kitchen he gets sausages going in the big, cast iron skillet while the griddle warms up. By the time the sausages are ready, he already has a sandwich ready for his lunch, and french toast down on the griddle. After plating the sausages, the scrambled eggs go in the skillet.

His partner joins him at the table, “Are you riding or driving today dear?” As he sets her plate in front of her he smiles, “It’s a nice enough day for the bike, I am so not looking forward to the winter.” Kelly pours syrup on her french toast, “I know, but at least you can ride today.” He pours her a glass of juice, “The riding season is always too short, we should have stayed in Arizona.”

Kelly shakes her head, “I know, but you know how badly the heat affected me down there.” Jim sighs, “Yeah I know, at least you tried, and I know how much you missed your family up here.” They finish their breakfast in silence.

Jim goes out for a quick smoke before heading to the bedroom to get dressed for work, jeans, t-shirt, steel toed boots, a hoody, and finally, his jacket, and back pack. Giving Kelly a quick kiss he heads out to warm up his bike, a relic from the past, a 1978 Kawasaki KZ650.

With the engine idling, his lunch box tucked under the cargo net, his helmet firmly buckled on his head, Jim pulls his gloves on, mounts the bike, backs out of his parking spot, and hits the road, the bike shifts smoothly up through second and third gear, gaining speed, until Jim has to kick down to first at the red light.

The left turn arrow turns green and as Jim starts into the intersection a car is heading straight at him, running the red light, and not seeing him, Jim is astonished, in a matter of seconds so many thoughts fill Jim’s head, should he just let the car hit him and end it all? Kelly will be fine, the life insurance policy will give her three hundred thousand dollars and he won’t have to worry about working a job he hates, a job that keeps him in pain, the emotional stress of dealing with Kelly’s physical and mental disabilities, the leg and knee issues that caused him to drop the bike twice in the last week. He can do nothing and just let it all end right here and right now. It would be so easy.

The car is getting closer, Jim is still having this mental debate, time seems to have slowed, at the last second Jim shakes his head, screams inside his helmet, jams his left thumb on the horn button, and yanks the throttle wide open with his right hand, the oncoming car narrowly missing his back tire as the bike accelerates down the street and Jim lets off the horn.

Jim spend the rest of the ride to work wondering if he made the right choice or not. It’s not like he has a whole lot to live for anyway, slaving away at a dead end job where he knows the names of four of the thirty people in his department, everyone slaving away in their own little worlds for eight hours a day not talking to each other.

Jim gets to work, parks his old beater between the pretentious asshole with the Harley who thinks everyone needs to hear the crappy music he blares every morning and the snooty sport bike girl with all the riding gear that she takes forever getting into and out of. Jim lights up another smoke before he has to head into work, past the overly friendly security guard who has to touch everyone that passes him.

End

There is no more story below this point. The story only wanted to be eight hundred and six words, but I had to come up with one thousand words to even post it to my profile so this is all just filler to make it to the one thousand word mark. Sometimes a story ends where it ends and trying to make it longer to fit a parameter is going to mess it up. To protect the integrity of my story I am just rambling along until I hit that magic one thousand word mark. You can ignore all of this stuff down here, but if you are still reading, I admire you, you are almost as silly as I am! We should make confetti and throw it around our offices, wouldn’t that be fun? We are almost to that magic one thousand word limit. About that confetti, that would be too messy, so maybe we should not do that. It would be silly though. I am running out of ideas for filler, so do you have any ideas for me? I hope you do, this is getting difficult. Oh hey, we just...