Clinching dirty white handlebar tape. Hot magnolia breeze in my teeth. Peddling the yellow ten-speed, pumping, swerving, up a hill. Freewheeling down the other-side—the buzzing click-click-click—everything left behind for a while.
Do they even make ten-speeds now? I should have a little black transistor radio gray-taped to the handlebars with “Three Dog Night,” singing “Shambala” serenading the curious cows with their long eyelashes blinking over soft eyes, asking, “What is this life?”
The silver ripples in the distance. The undulating road swells, stretching in the summer fumes. I race toward the mirage, popping tar, but I can never catch it. What is this silver blur? Is this Shangrila?
I stop where the mirage was at the same distance it is now up ahead. For no reason I swerve right—right off the rocky berm. The fast whip of tall weeds cut into my bare ankles. Too much speed—a header. The flash of a creek. The yellow Schwinn lies on its side, yawning, getting off its rubber dogs for a minute.
The stench of slick gray mud sucks at my ragged Dockers. I step, unbeknownst, through a spider web—frantic swipes—it’s in my hair! Then I see under the bridge.
Christopher J Ananias (Photos also by CJA)
Saragun Springs 
CJA
The under art we are surrounded by (minus the stupid tagging) is true to the Sound of Silence line about the words of the poets.
True stuff all the way.
Thank you!
Leila
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Hi Leila
Yes, it’s amazing to see all of this art under bridges or streaming by on the trains.
Thanks!
CJA
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Very cool. Terrific photos too! Brings to mind my own adventures atop my beloved icy-blue Schwinn Typhoon 10-speed, back around 400 years ago. Peddling through the darkened streets at midnight and later, while high. It lasted until an ugly green Plymouth backed unexpectedly into the street in front of me. The impact was such that it bent the frame of my bike, leaving me with a black spaghetti of chains, derailleurs and shredded rubber. Left me with a permanent limp too, as well as a bad attitude (the driver of the car sped heedlessly away). Barring that incident, I might have become a world-class something or other. Ha-ha. Good read. Thanks for the positive thought fleeting memories.
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Hi Bill
Damn sorry, that’s a bummer about the Plymouth! Nothing will fold your ass up like a gliding ten speed and a sudden immovable object. Rotten that the driver fled in his “heedless way.” That sounded like a beautiful bike, too. I remember what bikes used to mean and can still mean a lot even 400 hundred years later, lol.
Had my eye on a new Trek mountain bike, but will probably stick with my ten dollar, Giant I got at a yard sale.
“black spaghetti of chains, derailleurs and shredded rubber.” Great description!
Thanks for your kind comments!
CJA
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Hi CJA
Jesus was supposed to be the header–but he bailed. Got him back and placed him at both ends.
Leila
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Cool thanks!
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CJA
You truly are, big time, a SEER, and by that I mean you do truly see (and can very much see) what the average chump on the street cannot see (and/or does not want to or does not care to see).
Your artistic accomplishments are both wildly inspiriting and intimidating.
You’ve proved yourself a master across a series of kinds of art and types of writing.
Pictures, poems, memoirs, extensive commentaries, and a very wide variety of stories have all seen you create great examples of them.
And it is obvious from your work that you, even in your darkest stories, create from, and with, a sense of JOY first and foremost. Joy and a love of the game.
The best artists are never one-trick ponies, they can always spread it out and make things in various fields and/or genres. And that is manifestly you, the Van Gogh of Indiana and the whole American Heartland!
More a little later…
Dale
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Hi Dale
I think the act of creation is one of the most cathartic expressions possible. Yes without a doubt it’s joyful.
Giant exhales in the midst of the struggle. The effort to see the beauty–even the beauty in the horror is worth it.
Really great how you tied these expressions in with the Graffiti Jesus. I could see the spokes and the wheel locked together.
Thanks for your kind words!
Christopher
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Ananias
Now that Jesus has come back again (he was always good at escaping and hiding like the time they tried to throw him off the cliff and he disappeared through the crowd and then just plain disappeared, leaving them empty-handed) I want to highlight that picture. It is a great one. It should be studied in light of all the other pictures here and they should be studied in regard to it.
He is the center, and they (AND WE) are the spokes of the wheel.
There are many kinds of crucifixion in this world: from sex, to alcoholism, to drug addiction, to being an artist in the USA and many many many many other uncountable ways….
((And there are many kinds of redemption, and resurrection, as well…))
Dale
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