Thanks to our friends at Wakefield Press, here is a sneak peek into: Road Rage, written by Fred Guilhaus.
The Crash
I am sitting in a cycling peloton of five people. Rachel is the lone woman and more than holds her own in front of me. She’s formidable. The others are behind as I wait for my turn to lead. The sun has made an appearance, and the air is fresh.
What is more invigorating than a typical spring morning in Sydney? We head south to Wollongong along an unusually empty expressway.
The whirr of the wheels is a meditation. We sound like a swarm of bees and are ‘in the zone’; to some we are intruders on roads, which, to them, rightfully belong to the motor car. There’s a wee bit of a war going on. And the war has all the elements; a daily casualty list, grim tales of near misses, and an awareness of ‘them’ and ‘us’. If the world is a bucket, it’s brimming with rage.
While the senses are alert, the mind is a tabula rasa and ordinary stresses unravel like soiled bandages. Regret and promise have no seat at the table, yet each morning of a ride one small part of my brain registers disquiet. Sure, I’m reserving a bit of the road to myself, and maybe slowing down the desperately urgent. Am I smug in thinking that just maybe the desperately urgent should slow down a bit? Maybe the whole bloody world should slow down a bit.
How could I know just how much the whole world was going to slow down? Bruce, our cycling medico, now pedalling furiously behind me, warned us about the virus that is now looming as a threat.
To continue reading, head into your local bookstore of visit Wakefield Press to secure your own copy!