Slide

I had a party to get to.

A yakiniku tabehodai (eat-all-you-can Korean-style grilled meat) dinner and a night of drinking and dancing with friends who wanted to drown their troubles with alcohol and bury their self-doubts with loud music.

I had a party to get to. But it seems the rain had other ideas for me that night. Just as I was about to leave my laboratory, it released this great flood of water. It poured down in great white sheets, enough to make gutters tremble and enough to delay dinner for an hour and a half.

Finally, the pour slowed down to a trickle: a slow and very light rain one wouldn't mind getting caught in. A fine mist like perfume which made the streetlamps glow and created halos over un-umbrellaed people walking down the street. I put on my jacket and got on my bike.

In the middle of the ride, the rain got stronger, pelting me and my bicycle in a driving rhythm which to my ears sounded like mocking laughter. I trusted my all-weather breaker to do its job and see me through, so I shifted to high gear and pedaled on.

Out of nowhere, another biker came out of an intersection. I hit the brakes for the rear tire, but the roads were so wet, my bike skidded and fishtailed before I could fully control it. Nobody (and nobody's bike) got hurt, and we both apologized for whoever's fault it was. (My brakes'? The rains'? His? Mine?)

I got back on my bike. I had a party to get to.

Out of nowhere, a song plays in my head: "The pouring rain is no place for a bicycle ride, try to hit the brakes and you slide. And you slide, and you slide, and you slide..."