It's a long read, but please bear with me....
Flashback to November, 2003: I had recently bought my Busa...was so damned excited to get her. Me an her....taking this little bitty island by storm. The island is only 33 miles long by 26 miles wide. In two weeks, I put about 600 new miles on the odo....and she wasn't even my primary form of transportation. Bear in mind how long and how wide the island is. I was riding high....enjoying the peace and stillness of mind that until now had never been achieved through anything else. Riding was therapuetic....I never knew how good it felt to actually have "nothing on your mind". Bliss....purely.
December comes and goes....and I soon become dependent upon riding to relieve my everday stress. Riding was better than stopping by the Pub on the way home to crack down a cold one. Life was never better.
January comes with a dream...I'm facing the sun, the front wheel comes up...and it keeps on coming up....and I can't seem to control it. I end up crashing the Busa....I see her bouncing and flipping...parts flying as she tumbles mercilessly against the earth. A nightmare indeed....
February comes...and a riding companion passes away. Right before my eyes, I see him slowly leaving this earth...eyes glazed, fixated skyward. I feel for a pulse....there is one, but it is faint....subtle....and then no more. I see no visible injuries on his person...only a dark, thick liquid trickling down the hill where he was laying. I could only assume one thing: cranial fluid. I hear wailing in the background....disbelief in voices that belonged to the group I was riding with that day...and then one voice pierces the mayhem: his wife's. I hear her screaming "Is he going to be okay?!?!".....I tell her that he should be fine.
Two weeks later, the same dream occurs...me facing the sun...front wheel coming up...and I can't stop it. I see myself tumbling and sliding...and I see the Busa doing the same. I wake up and shake it off....although I am already somewhat unsettled by the occurrence of these dreams.
One more dream in March of 2004....and yet again, I dismiss it. "It's just a warning," I say to myself...I just need to be extra careful.
April comes....no re-occurring dreams. I am at peace once again...and riding. Not with reckless abandon, but with tempered awareness. April 27th comes...it is a beautiful day to ride. Sun high, no clouds...somewhat breezy, but when is it not on a tropical island in the middle of the ocean? I go to work in the cage...just so I can take a better look at the weather that the day offers. Lunchtime comes, I take the wife, eat, and then go home to pick up the bike. I leave work early to get in a ride with two good friends....at 5:30pm, disaster strikes.
The very same dream now comes back....but this time it's played out in the real world...instead of in my mind. I'm facing a beautiful sunset. A nice, strong cross-wind hits me...it's nothing new. lean and add throttle, and voila! Instant correction. Not today, however....as I would soon find out.
The front wheel comes up in the air....and continues to rise. I try to correct it, but remain frozen in my previous posture. My mind communicates to my body what it needs to do....but to no avail. I kick off the bike....and instantly feel my palms shred. My butt takes a beating too...I hear the once mighty roar of 1300CC's reduced to a painful silence....and realize while I'm rolling down the road that this is NO dream.
Fast forward to April 21st, 2005 at 4:22 in the morning. I awaken from a previously uneventful slumber....roused by a dream that disturbed me deeply.
I'm riding once again....the Busa is now rebuilt. I can vividly recall the feeling of being at peace mentally yet again! I look down at my shadow following me on the road....and the sun is at my back. I cannot believe that I am once again back in the saddle....the rebuild seemed only to have lasted two weeks. I feel exhiliration that I was able to complete a monumental task (at least to myself) in such a short period of time. I'm riding on new tires....so I know that there is the slippery preservative compound on them. I need to be careful...and careful I am. I get on the throttle easy....and then slowly start to weave on the road. Slowly leanin over a little bit further each time I weave, trying to scrub off that preservative compound.
Again....disaster strikes. As I lean the bike over to my left, I feel the back start to get unstable....before I can correct it, I feel the bike take an unhealthy dive to the side...and then see her sliding out from beneath me. I feel my face hit the ground....I roll and slide on my back until there is no more momentum. My face is burning, but I don't feel any missing skin. How ironic...I didn't feel there was any skin missing from my butt either.
I get up and stare in disbelief at the bike now laying on it's side....broken, bent and silent. It took me so long to get back up and in the saddle again...and yet in an instant, it is gone. It was at this particular moment that I awake....heart racing and breathing heavily.
Is this my new fate? Is this what I am destined for when I saddle up again? I pray to the Good Lord above that it is not...that it is only a passing dream.
Warily, I dismiss it. Yet somehow....doubt grows in my mind. I do not know the meaning of this particular dream....much like I did not know the meaning of the last one. Is it a precursor of events that will unfold? Or is it just that: a dream that is passing...
Perhaps this time around it will not be just my dream that passes...
