Murderess back pain

Three months ago I didn’t understand bikes.

All I saw were: pedals and handlebars, one very awkward saddle, wheels, frames. 

Bikes were fiddly constructed vehicles from which I had fallen off countless times and into which my father would shove a wooden stick when, unfailingly supportive, he tried to teach me to cycle. 

And yet, one golden day in a land of everlasting autumn I rode on the rack of a bike – murderous pain stabbing my back – with a friend of mine sweating profusely behind its handlebar, I finally understood.

Through toil, sweat, and sticks they brought people together.

They brought people to my life as well. 

I spread my arms wide as if I wanted to embrace the world that surrounded me. I stretched my fingers to contact the resistance of the wind that stood in the way of our bike. 

We covered this distance despite adversities. Always laughing, looking forward to reaching our destination and at the same time wanting to stay a little longer at this very moment. 

Now, let me tell you my story. 

***

I moved abroad when I was reaching the serious-sounding age of nineteen. 

I started to dream about it when I was reaching the serious-sounding age of sixteen. 

It was my first grand journey. I forced all the knowledge and experience into my head, let it wander around, and map my thoughts out. Allowed to sink into the walls of my mind, infect me with idyllic expectations and hopes that were bound to remain simply this - expectations and hopes. 

Too far from the earth. 

They tricked me into believing that there’s enough oxygen in space. 

Or maybe it was me who let them trick me, allowed myself to believe in fairytales about immaculate universities and inspiring programs. 

My second grand journey proved me wrong. 

There’s no oxygen in space. 

That’s why, when I finally got my way and moved out, there was no air I could breathe. Inhalation and exhalation, so obvious until now, seemed unattainable for the first time. 

So let's pose a question here, how long can a person survive without oxygen?

Some might answer that it won't be long - a few minutes, a dozen or so if someone is exceptionally lucky.

There are exceptions, however. 

Some have developed such a strong will that they are able to survive much longer without oxygen. Blue in the face, with a sluggish step and crazy eyes, they can hold their breath for years.

I managed to hold my breath for three months. To maintain it I had to work out a strategy. I shrank, I shrank in myself. I allowed my ribs to imprint a pattern on my clothes, and my cheekbones to throw razor-sharp glares at passersby.

It can be very cold in space. The cold is sometimes piercing, so to protect myself from it I began to hide under layers of baggy sweaters and jeans.

I became eensy. So eensy that even the most trivial dreams would take the shape of the greatest nightmares.

Nights were violent. The last oxygen, escaping at the speed of light, the one that allowed me to survive the days, was now tearing me apart from the inside.

 It seemed that the significantly decreasing oxygen level was also affected by the additional presence.

All the unromantic nights I shared with the monsters. They crept out of their holes only to climb onto my bed, slip under my covers, and slither onto my shoulder from where they whispered their spells that took my breath away.

They adored taking on various forms.

One night I had an encounter with a dark, unsharp figure that towered over and stared at me in accompaniment of eerie silence, without mouth, nose, eyes, but with the piercing presence of something that shouldn't exist and yet is standing right above you.

Another time a cluster of tiny spiders came out of my ribs and tickled me with their hairy scopulaes.

I often dreamed about the past. Events from my life with different outcomes.

And people – ones who haunt me to this day, their seemingly gentle faces and eternally suffocating embraces. Their bewitching words and graceful manipulations. Their inept kindnesses and stifle guidance.

That’s why the nights deprived me of oxygen.

That’s why it was so hard to get out of bed in the morning. To force my limbs to move when they were no longer limbs but rather empty shells hollowed out by force. They covered distances clinging to hope with the tips of their fingers. Hope that soon they would be filled and movement would again be the mechanical action, the mindless act, not the ordeal. 

For those three long months, I cycled.

It was a transport I knew well before, but only used occasionally. My bike rides were limited to summer afternoons full of sunshine and life, when the wind blew my hair in all directions.

For the first time in my life, it became an obligation. An inevitable part of my everyday life. It no longer belonged to the sun, no longer to the long road in the nearby clearing. On this journey, the bike served as my transport. But not solely.

Despite this, it gave me something incredibly valuable.

Oxygen.

Breathing in.

And breathing out.

 Deep, calming, the only one during those extremely long days.

The moments when I felt – though not completely happy – decent enough, accumulated to junctures when I jumped on the bike and took deep, rapacious, and certainly necessary breaths.

The minutes flew by quickly, too quickly, and I felt that in order to survive I had to be constantly on the move, I had to escape, abandon this place that was supposed to be like a dream, but turned out to be a poxy clash with reality.

And even though I started yet another journey – I have recently been able to catch my breath more often than just on the bike – from inhale to exhale – it will stay with me.

No longer as a seasonal event, no longer subjected to the sun, but as a year-round path to better thought-out and thus wiser decisions.

Three months ago I didn’t understand bikes.

Now I do.

And I’m learning again how to breathe deeply.