How long ago was it now, the first time I drove at night? The first time I could truly feel the power of the engine purring beneath me. The first time I watched the light of the day sink beneath the far horizon. The first time I was immersed in a world that only existed in the headlights of my parent’s old car. That feeling, that first taste of true freedom, that moment in which the only thing you can worry about is what is right in front of you. Maybe that’s why I craved it always now.
From the first moment I realized I wanted a motorcycle, and the years of hard work it took for me to get one, I knew it was the only way I could feel that same kind of freedom again. To have something of my own, to see the world in the dim illumination of my own headlight, that was all I ever wanted. Even now when I am watching the world fly past at unnerving speeds that same comfort, those same desires filled me. When the blur of the white lines bled together into a single white line, then you can truly be alone in the world.
When your mind is focused enough that you no longer have to think, when you no longer have conscious control of your actions. When your thoughts are lost in a sea of subconscious dealings, then you can sometimes understand more about yourself than if you sat alone striving to immerse yourself in some kind of self imposed nothingness. Instead of trying to eliminate all of your mental processes, why not try to drown yourself in them?
I let my mind wander back to the restaurant. It climbed the lonely back stairs, drifting slowly, skipping forward suddenly here and there. Letting my mind get ahead of myself I could now see two possibilities. One was the future I was imagining for myself, the other was the present that casually drifted along an already pre-determined path into a world that was being created solely for its existence. The hall suddenly gave way to the door to my room, closed tightly, and in front of it the ghostly figure of the girl.
Her figure was blurred, only certain features were recognizable. Her soft eyes almost leapt out of her face as they gazed towards me. Her ruby red lips seemed to envelop her entire face in their captivating beauty. Her soft hair fell lightly about her slim perfectly shaped face following the lines of her neck that flowed perfectly into her slim body. It was all perfection as her lips parted and she spoke my name silently.
I slowly opened my eyes and let the real world shatter my distorted fantasy universe. The night was racing by me at a steady pace, perfectly kept by thousands of processes that would not let the bike get away from me. I glanced down and saw Konpyuuta Chan’s hand placed over mine on the accelerator. She adjusted it slightly as the road stretched further ahead of us into an un-perceptible blackness. Just as surely as I could not see what was coming next, she knew everything. Every nick in the road, every intersection, every slight curve. She could see everything that lay before us, the entire world was at her fingertips.
I stopped and looked back at her slightly. “Doesn’t it bother you… that you can see everything that is in front of us? That… there isn’t an unknown, that you can just know exactly where we are going and what will be there?”
She looked at me and smiled softly. “If I didn’t look, then who would?”
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