Magic and Motorbikes

A gang of lightning fast neon colored bikers zip down a freeway-in sturly, broad black motorbikes. As the road bent to the left and around the foot of the hills, a meak river cut behind the hill and bends against it to meet the road head on, as the hill's foot reached its limit for infrastructural construction obstruction.

As the bikers ran the curve, one of the clumsy unskilled back riders slid into the railing as the turn was too tight for his bike and the turn radius of his bike didn't quite make the cut. He slid into the metal railing separating a wet embrace from the much enjoying being dry drivers and riders crossing this interstate as an intermediary place of existence. Serving no other purpose but to get us from point A to point B.

The bike first kissed only the handle to the rail, yet soon enough the bike and its rider had found themselves grinding up against the rail as wheels fell and skin scrapped. This particular biker's name was Garret. Garret had fallen off of his bike and carried by the momentum of his spectacular crash and the still tiring scraping asphalt bike, ended up flying past the end of the railing and into the river, which at this point past the hill, had widened and deepened to something more deserving of the title river.

At the head of the biker rally was a man named Stephen. Stephen was quite the tough man. He was a veteran and a young one at that. Honorably discharged at only thirty two and with nine confirmed kills, he left a life of duty and bloodshed a long time ago. Glorious it once was, now is only a sinking pit of sadness sat in solitude. Biking takes his mind off his past. The wind and the rushing bugs flying past his helmeted head helped to bring an inner peace to a war ridden mind.

The fellow back riders stopped to help garret out of the river. His bike was maimed more than a tourist in Sydney during schoolies. The wheels had snapped out of their socket and the handles were bent to an unrideable degree. Garret had pulled himself to the bank, as his leather jacket and electronic gadgets all absorbed water at peak destructive pace. Ports for cables flooded, where rubber gaskets should have been, laid now with nothing but water for short circuiting. Some of his gear had been knocked loose and carried away by the powerful stream of pulsing and rushing water whites. The foaming river lifelessly tries to crush Garret under the weight of himself.

Up in the front Stephen and his side rider Tommy Planet, missed the chaotic mess of the back riders and continued to zoom onwards. Neon lights flashing and pieces of technology beeping. Stephen lifted his right hand as the bike's auto steering took hold. He splayed and glanced at the palm. A screen of a teal blue flashed from the very skin of his hand. On it could be seen a complicated menu with various buttons of various colors and symbols. From the selection Stepehn selected a button in thought and the device responded by opening the corresponding menu.

"Dammit, we forgot the bug spray", Stephen said to Tommy.

Tommy nodded and started to fall behind in rank so Stephen could apply the spell. Tommy snapped his fingers over his head to signal to the rest to fall into rank. One by one, the bikers fell into line, beam to bumper. Bumper to beam. The two staying behind for Garret, saw this signal and cursed in wasted haste. Jim Haynes, a browned haired, short stack of a man, jumped out of the bank and started waving his arms frantically over his head. The bikers kept zipping on forwards, missing the pleas to wait.

Above Stpehen appeared a large mist cloud, orange in color, yet shiny like diamonds in oil. The liquid vapor swirled, gathered, and spread the breadth and width of the swarm of mechanical ants in mechanical action. Showering down upon them a clear powder onto their body and cycles. Like a swarm of starving locusts, the shine spread and coated everything within reach. Bug spray. At Least that's the name these few men knew it by.

Garret gulped and a garden of gunk guiserred out of his gut, gushing grossly onto the galvanized gearbox of his bike's prime-gage girdle. Jim and Blanca, the power couple of the biker gang, the slowest, yet the stablest. Their bikes have been technologically enhanced and fitted out to be as safe as can be, with the sacrifice of speed of course. They were the medics of the group. Always first to respond to an emergency and always the last to leave the scene. They missed quite much of the action

As the bug spray settled and clung to the leather jerkins, the mist transcended from a dull, refractive silver and into a prismatic godcolor of dispersing and gathering essence of a nature beyond our base understandings. A thin film shone over top the bikers presence and as the light refracted through the silver filament, the bikers seemed to all but disappear into the air and fall out of space. Bug spray indeed.

Garret, Jim and Blanca starred on as their crew melted into the atmosphere and only left behind the shadow of its engines combusting pistons.

"Goddammit", Blanca Sighed.

"I'll phone Tommy, he handles this stuff", replied Jim.

"Please!", Garret managed to gasp up after coughing the remaining water lodged in his throat.

"Oh thank god, you're alive"

"You always worry too much Blanca"

"Oh hush it. I don't wanna hear it from you right now", blanca side eyed Jim and tisked at his remark before going to help Garrett.

She looked down stream for the bike and saw only a few parts washed up on the banks and the actual body is nowhere to be seen.

"Garrett, we gotta call you in the lift. You're dead in the water out here."

Garret only sighed and shook his head in affirmation.

"Hey Jim, get over here and stop sulking. Get your palm out and call the lift in for garrett. 350gk."

"Roger".

Garret clung to the bank and the bikes girdle which lay next to him. His feet paddled him upright and to relieve some unconscious stress from the crash. HIs eyes hung low in regret and annoyance of circumstance.

"Blanca...", he whispered.

She stared over at him, her blonde hair fluttering in the wind, the helmet dent as obvious as ever, yet she was beautiful. He's never seen her from this angle before. He sighed a quiet dismissal of his earlier request and hung his head lower in shame. Sand collected on his forehead and he lowered and lowered ever so further to avoid the communication mistake he had just made.

"Garrett get your head out of the dirt and get your ass up, we got Marty on its way here to get you back to the city", JIm said, not even looking up from his palm.

Blanca headed towards her bike, and more than purposely bumped shoulders with the still preoccupied JIm. Their eyes met at the sides, scald and bewilderment. Blanca and Jim, exchanging hundreds of words in a mere glance.

"Blanca, it's not that serious."

Blanca inserted her hands into her gloves and tugged to make a tight fit. She then patted her jacket to check if belongings were where they should be and hopped on her bike. A trail of dust was all that could be seen.

"Goddammit!" Jim cursed, throwing his gloves on the ground.

"...", Garret twinges at the force of the impact.

Jim looked up at Garret, for the first time looking at him. Not just towards his direction, but at him. Observing and gathering details about who this man really is. Jim spits on the ground and says, "lift with be here soon, hang tight" while he pulls out a cigarette from his jacket pocket and lights it with his middle finger. Jim walked back to his bike, staring and scoffing at the trail made by Blanca's wheels.

"That Garrett," Jim thought. "I'll never understand him, quiet piece of shit. Speak up if you got something to say. Stop stuttering through life like a cripple, godammit" He taps his cigarette against his handlebars to loosen the ashes.

He stares back one more time at Garret, those lowly sunken eyes in the twilight of his own shadow casted, truly the lowest of life. Jim was an upstanding military veteran, he only knew to be of the fittest, or die barely trying. It's the game of life as simple as it could be, he thought. Garret was weak and lowly, underneath the rest of them, entirely undeserving of the title of a Boarflier.

Jim spat, kicked his stand out and dust trails were all Garret saw until the horizon dropped off and swept away his crew and his bike further and further out.