Tunnel Vision

Tucked In
Copyright © 2007 Michael Curry, RoadCarvin.com

First gear. Throttle open wide.

Scenery rushing by. Faster, now.

Second gear.

Head down low, behind the windscreen. Just enough to keep the turbulence from ripping at your protective leather hide, your 'second skin'. You can hear the mechanical gnashing and whirring, the honk of the intakes. You feel the vibration of the machine just below you, the barely muted roar straining to escape as you unleash the fires of Hell within the confines of the engine.

Everything but the vanishing point becomes a blur as your motorcycle gobbles up the tarmac at an alarming rate and tunnel vision sets in. The vegetation at the side of the road appears as a fast-moving smudge of brown and green flying by the edges of your vision.

Third gear. The outside world is whizzing by at an alarming rate. You realize that things are reaching the critical point. The point of no return. Prudence dictates a return to sanity now.

You roll off the throttle and sit up a bit - the wind hits you like a blast from an open fire hydrant - it always amazes you to feel that force; you think: air is supposed to be soft, isn't it?

Approaching normal speed now. Your thoughts linger on the sheer magnificence of the engineering behind the modern motorcycle - the chassis, the brakes, and oh, the engine! That fabulous powerplant that has so much to offer, that seduces you with the siren's song - and you think to yourself: "Power corrupts..."