The weather is gorgeous, and I start to relax a little bit. There is still a large chance that I’m going to wreck, because that is what I do best, but it’s too hard to think about that when the temperature makes your skin tingle.
In front of me there are hundreds of blinking red and white lights. Behind me there are more, some strobing and some just a steady beam, making my shadow dance almost as well as Sammi does. I follow the lights ahead, turning and stopping when they do, throwing a foot to the ground because my brakes don’t work very well. There are so many of us, and we sail in a thick mob of chains and wheels. The dentist plays his music and manages to dance while riding. Somehow it works out; we sway and weave but no one hits anyone else, like a school of strange glowing fish.
I’m laughing to myself, because a while ago I was slogging through trigonometry, and now I’m coasting. Then suddenly we hear the sounds of hundreds of bells ringing. I lift my head and struggle to comprehend what I see.
Up ahead the mass of lights swirls around a turnabout. A circle of cycling. Lights blink and blend into neon streaks, and the bells. The bells! They hit my ears like drops of water. We have built ourselves a carousel and we wait for our turn to ride.
There is a break. We go for it, pushing off the asphalt and becoming part of the ring. I no longer know which way is North. I’m simply going in a circle, surrounded by bells and music. People whoop and howl and screech. I sing aloud a song that has been stuck in my head. I look at the person next to me, and I see that he is just as happy as I am. Happy to be there, not doing homework, happy to be lost, happy to be chilly, and happy to be alive tonight.
The carousel turns into a ribbon that slowly unwinds around a corner. I am sad that I don’t get to go around again. It was only a minute or two, but those minutes feel like they were taller, louder, sharper than the minutes before and after them.
I look back and see a few stragglers have stayed, and they continue to go in circles, grasping in vain at the magic that was just there a second ago.
