Milestone

Woodlands, 50 km. It's been rough, dealing with the impetuous, ill-judged and so in-your-face. Hobson's choice: even if I don't choose, I'm making a choice. As it turned out, things didn't work out. But I'll never know if I did the right thing, because I don't know what would've happened if I didn't choose. I guess, in such situations, heuristics would've helped. But then, even proverbs conflict: "great minds think alike" vs "fools seldom differ".

To get away from it all for a while, I cycle more out of a sense of obligation than anything else. But I'm glad I did. It's not raining, it is cool.

Two cyclists, one of them a roadie, ride against traffic flow and head towards me. A taxi sees me and pulls out anyway. A roadie dressed in black overtakes me and waves. In the night, he can barely be seen. I crank it up and draw beside him and yell: "Your tail light is out!" He replies: "Must be the battery. Flat." He pulls away. I catch up with him at a traffic light. When the light turns green, he waves to me and vanishes into the dark. All he has are tiny, tiny reflectors.

For my insurance, I have a big tail light, two (small) reflectors on my bicycle (and two strips on my helmet) and a gleaming shoulder sash. If only I have such a safety margin elsewhere.

Wishbone Ash's Persephone plays in my head. I realise that when there's a song in my head, I can't think of anything else. It's a kind of meditation, a kind of hush to trouble and fuss.

Oh, the world is 41,000 km round. Today I cross the 60,000 km mark.