I awake late in Columbia Heights. Goodbyes and coffee that absolutely would’ve gone to waste detain me but soon I’m on the last share bike back to H Street and my head is clear and the afternoon awaits. Samarth and Emily are in the arboretum. They invite me along, “if possible can u bring another water bottle? No worries if not.” But soon those “no worries” become “truly nbd” become “we’re leaving.” So I abandon my plans to load up the Baja to swing by before setting off to the W&OD and instead laze in my basement reading The Lost Books of the Odyssey. Samarth and Emily arrive back at 916 and the time to leave is now. I ride out the back gate after filching a Nature Valley bar from Samarth’s stash. Past the human feces baking on our garage and right towards Union Station. I follow my front wheel, which soon pulls me north and we’re riding up the Metropolitan Branch Trail, Red Dust and I. My Chinese surname is graffitied along the path, the marginalia of a boozy afternoon celebrating Samarth’s graduation some three weeks back. Emily’s name and place of work, scrawled in a fit of… something we have not yet examined within William, is covered up beneath a bridge that leads into Brookland. We pull east and then north and then we’ve left the district. PG County is bleak, a car tails me through a neighborhood but abandons pursuit after I pull into an Ethiopian Church that shelters a small international market in the parking lot. I soon find Sligo Creek trail. Then I simply ride. I recall Sarah mentioning something about dropping heels on climbs and Dillon offering instruction on the proper pedal push to off-leg pull ratio but the half-remembered commentary of experts becomes the conjecture of fools. So I ignore all that and pedal. At a waste-water treatment drainage pond I startle a red tail hawk. Later, I startle a deer. Soon I am passing Silver Spring, then Wheaton, then a town of some English name. I turn left onto Beach Drive, and ride down into Rock Creek. On 14th I stop at the Taqueria Habanero. A couple next to me chats. “Not to humble brag but my breakfast this morning was incredible.” “Do you always like your eggs like that?” “I was used to the cast iron.” Then they move on to wedding planning. There is a cellist to hire and a venue to book, “how about a Sunday wedding?” “It would have to be a three day weekend.” “What’s on the 11th?” “The 11th of what?” “November.” “Columbus/Indigenous People’s Day. Besides, it’d be cold.” I return to my Enchiladas en Pollo with green salsa. I flit briefly to New Mexico but do not allow myself to linger. I get back on the bike and make my way steady south east. Pride-goers in overalls and jorts march happily towards the parade. I weave through traffic on Georgia and then I am home. I slip through the alley, past the feces, through the back door, and down the basement steps. I go upstairs for a glass of water and see Emily sleeping on the couch. I hope that she comes to rested. Odysseus awaits me.
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