A Purple Winter

Prologue The rain is turning to sleet and I’m driving too fast. Need to calm down. To slow down. But something warns me. Don’t reduce speed too fast. Don’t. When I hit the deep puddle of water I’m aware I’ve lost all traction. The tires have no grip. The moment for caution is behind me, I’m nothing but flesh and bones straddled over machinery, and my hands gripping the bike handles won’t stop the panicked steel stallion under me. I’m skidding at a speed that will only be controlled by a collision and now I know I was once an imaginative child with a stutter, that I grew hardened but never hopeless, that I read, watched, listened, learned, ingested, digested, drank, slept, worked, studied, ran, walked, jumped, ached, cried, laughed, observed, questioned, doubted, believed, fell, stood, lied, cheated, forgave, begged, pleaded, bargained, wrote, played, toyed, envied, made love, got drunk, high, down, and that I was, have been, and will be. But everything I thought was important is useless to me now, in this instant. All I have, as I hit the puddle of water, is myself. The mystery is revealed. The lucidity is like the sound of metal over pavement. Loud and unstoppable. I understand. I understand. I understand. The force of the hit knocks the air, thoughts, sanity out of me and I’m nothing but a piece of cloth in the hands of pain. The speed of this moment wrenches me off the wheel of time and I spin and tumble through the air, but when my body is propelled from the Ducati’s seat, my mind is still hitting that puddle of water—still waiting for impact. Then there is an earthquake and the walls of my cranium come crashing down into my brain, every window of my mind shattering all at once, as shards of glass and dark matter meet somewhere under my eyes in colors so brilliant they wipe out memories and feelings. All there is left is your name, my love. Like a chant. A pulse. An incantation. An omen. A promise. Nicolai…