Spare Part's Graveyard
Just a short little story because I've been stuck in that cycle of not writing then feeling guilty because you're not writing then not writing because you're feeling guilty because you're not writing because...
I hope you enjoy it! I learnt to ride a bike really late so this story is somewhat based on true events. Unfortunately, there are no anthropomorphic bears in my life. Oh well.
Thanks for reading as always :)
I wanted to yell out, to scream for help, but I simply sat there on the floor; I was dumbfounded and humiliated just enough to silence me. I sat there, limp and still. I sat there, holding back tears, as the thick air of the woods seemed to taunt me.
I had gone flying over my handlebars after I failed to land a particularly ambitious jump. It was known as the Spare Part's Graveyard from all the various sprockets and gears scattered deep in the peat from every other failed attempt before me. I felt as though I was about to make the name a little more literal, staying there until I died, pinned underneath my bike with my leg stuck in the wheel. There was a pit between two hills that had formed from a long-since-dried river, and with clearings on both sides, it was the perfect test of skill. You had to master gathering enough momentum spinning around a corner whilst avoiding the long roots of the trees, and then straighten up your handlebars just at the right angle to ride up the slope, and then you had to hold your breath as your front wheel left the ground still revolving, and then feel the sinking feeling as your back wheel said goodbye to the earth beneath it, and pray, and hope that you would make it to the other side.
Few made it. But the important thing was that some did. They were heroes in my eyes: valiant soldiers who had survived the worst war, brave mountaineers who had summited the highest mountain, and selfless astronauts risking it all to find life on the other side. Meanwhile, I was the scum rotting at the bottom, the pathetic waste to be laughed at, hopelessly trying to climb up the ranks.
As I cried on the mossy soil, it was the reasons why I had tried to make it in the first place that made me most upset. On a trip to a beautiful island just off the coast of the mainland a few weeks ago, I fell off my bike in a humiliating manner. I couldn't detach my clips from the pedals, and as I frantically tried to break my paws free, I simply toppled over and hit the ground. The bikers behind me rode past and laughed at my stunt. And it hurt.
When I got home from the trip I screamed out in my garage and furiously pulled the clips off, replacing them with my old feeble ones, and as I tore them from my bike, they hit the floor and shattered, rendering them unusable. I had saved months for them, but evidently, they were nothing but trouble. My anger quickly boiled away to sadness and regret, and there wasn't a day that passed I didn't feel sorry for myself.
I thought somehow making this jump would prove I was somehow capable. I guess not. I slumped onto my back and held my paws over my eyes, blocking out the light, and hiding away the misery. The ground was an uncomfortable pillow beneath me, yet it was nothing compared to the throbbing emerging from my twisted ankle. I lay there, wallowing in self-pity until I felt empty. I sat up, all my sadness and frustration having simply boiled away, and with one heavy breath, I yanked my paw out of the wheel.
Silly idea. "OW!" I screamed, tears brewing once again in my eyes. "OW!" I yelled, my ankle turning purple from all the traumata. "SHIT!" I seethed as I clutched desperately onto it, and it pulsed on my paw pads grotesquely. I heard footsteps approaching hastily from my right, but I ignored them as I backed myself against the walls of the pit. I didn't want attention. I didn't want to be laughed at.
"Hey, are you okay?" said a voice as the footsteps came closer. I looked over to the source, slowly tracing my eyes up the figure. Brown paws, then scruffy blue jeans marked with mud and grime, then a creased flannel shirt, then the tassels of a backpack, then a fluffy cream neck, and then the snout of a bear. He was staring down at me with an empathetic frown as he crouched down next to me. "What happened?"
"Missed the jump," I groaned, vaguely pointing above me.
"You tried the Graveyard without anyone with you?" he replied as he ruffled through his bag, pulling out a little first aid kit. He opened it up as he lifted my leg onto his shoulder, so my ankle was elevated.
"Yeah," I said, although it felt like a confession. I winced as he started tending to my wound, but I also frowned. A plunge of guilt ran through me. A feeling of loneliness.
"That's stupid, you know?"
"Yeah," I whispered, my voice catching.
The bear finished tying a makeshift bandage around my ankle and then he held out his paw to me. "We've gotta get you to A&E for that, make sure it isn't broken," he said as he supported me up, "I'll help you."
"Thanks," I replied bluntly as I hobbled along next to him.
The journey to the hospital was a painful one, but the bear had stories to tell for days. He introduced himself as Adal (which was short for Adalbern), a firefighter who enjoyed riding for the thrill. He told me about his rides in Greece, Italy, Turkey, India, and France. A common theme emerged in each one of his idyll descriptions: at some point in each, he had fallen off.
"It's just something you have to deal with, you know?" he said as we waited on the chairs for the x-ray results.
"But is it not embarrassing?" I replied with a frown.
"Yeah. Very. You'll get laughed at, you'll get pointed at, hell, I got a picture on the wall in one of the hostels I stayed at, but that's part of it all."
"I don't get it."
"If you don't ever fall off, you can never get back on, hm? You have to make a gambit to win a game of chess. You have to take a leap of faith to feel the thrill of a skydive. You have to fail to win," he said comfortingly.
I've thought about what he said ever since. He spoke with such confidence, such reassurance that I couldn't help but absorb it all. His words became my mantra. He was the very thing I craved to become. Well, I got married to him a great few years after that. And today, we're back at the Graveyard, and I just watched my daughter make the jump I never could.
"Daddy! I did it!" she squealed delightfully as she rode back around to us. Adal scooped her up and laughed.
"Yeah, you did. I'm proud of you," he said.
It wasn't self-actualisation that made her do it. It wasn't revenge or proving herself worthy. She had fallen down many times too, but she had the right support to get up and try again.
No. It was resilience.