Running fast. Running hard. Her arms are around my shoulders. The wind whips our hair into a mass of knots. It is cool enough our jackets feel good but not so cold as to give us an ice cream headache. We lean into the curve. The bike starts to drift just a bit. I crack the throttle to power us through the curve and to correct the drift.
We race the full, bright moon. The moon is winning, although we are running a close second. The vibration from the engine makes its way through the soles of our boots, seeps into our blood stream and fills us with a sense of exhilaration. The unbaffled straight pipes resonate with a song of freedom. Any problems that once existed are gone, snatched by the gods and thrown to the four winds to disperse.
There is no yesterday. There is no tomorrow. There is no later. We have this moment. We have this place. Nothing else exists. Nothing else has meaning. We are alive, so vividly alive. We are free and we are here now.
She hugs me a little tighter and nips at my hair. I lean back onto her. It feels good. It would feel better were it not for our jackets. I settle for good. When you race the moon, it is all good. I throw my head back and roar my happiness into the night. Those that have gone on before look down upon our joy and give us their blessing.
I decide to allow the moon to win the race by default. The bike begins to slow as my gloved right hand eases up on the throttle. My right foot feathers the rear brake lightly as my left foot downshifts to make a right turn onto a country road. The moon smiles down upon us – a gracious victor.
At 45 mph, the wind caresses our faces. I slip a cigarette out of my jacket pocket and light it with the lighter I added to my dashboard. She scratches my tangled hair with both hands. It feels good. I hold the cigarette between my teeth as I reach back to pat her thigh with my left hand.
The aromas of the earth assail our nostrils. There is the sweetness of new mown hay. The pungent odor of cattle. There is the perfume of last year's leaves slowly melting into the earth to enrich the soil. A host of wild flowers blend their essence to form a fragrance man will never be able to duplicate.