Bat Bridge

Tonight was like most nights here, warm and filled with chirping. But I wanted to put icing on this cake, so I strapped on my shoes, pumped up the tires and clipped in to my bike for a gentle ride. It's been a few days since I've straddled The Beast (must think of a better name) because I rode the Dahlonega 6-Gap this past weekend. I've never actually experienced aches in both Achilles tendons and was rather put off. But, regrouping, I got over the slight depression which follows any large sporting endeavor (called "PMS" for marathoners, etc), and promised to let the things rest. They were swathed like babies in ice each evening, and neither running nor biking would fill my agenda this past week, to prevent any further aggravating of my tendons.
But tonight, feeling that they had rested sufficiently and to prevent my head from smoking due to lack of heart-rate-raise-age, I headed out for a spin...It was like rebirth in some world I already knew. The sun was low in the sky with clouds that resembled convex geodes. My legs immediately remembered how to push, and my arms ambled to the center of the handle bars to achieve a comfort level surpassed by few water beds.
Down a slight decline there was a crow. The primary flight feathers on the wings sheened and the shafts looked like pick-up sticks not-so-carelessly dropped, but placed. I know I shouldn't, but I have totally enjoyed riding in between the yellow lines this crow's carcass now straddled across.
It seemed that the crow's death was intimate and individual. In any movie I've seen of late, there's always some friend of the dead with a solemnly willing hand to close the eyelids of the fallen...and CUT!
No, instead of having a comrade, the crow knew/hoped no other would risk death in that not-so-yellow-brick road to close its eye-lids when its body would start decaying from the inside anyway...It actually performed the act itself in its own way. Lacking Homo sapian dexterity for the purpose, it reached its wing up and covered its head. This little story would perhaps explain the chalk-outline way it lay when I passed its body.
From death to life.
I rode further and watched the sun glow through an old wooden fence, bar-coding me as I rode by. My goal was a bridge which confounded me the first time I got lost in...er...rode this route.
It was a warm summer day, and I was buzzing along when I heard the squeaking of a car when I went over this particular bridge for the first time. But when I out-and-backed it, I noticed the same squeaking in the same spot and no car in sight. I hit the brakes, pulled out my headphones and rolled my bike forward two feet as I searched for the sound which could have emanated from my sleek ride. No dice.
Retracing my rollings, I noted the sounds coming from an expansion joint in the bridge. In the noonday sun I noticed a freaking monster amount of little squeakers. Thinking they were mice, I wondered how the hell they'd gotten themselves squished into that confined and parallel space? I figured on I-beam traversing as a possible method of arrival. But then I looked again and noticed wings. This is why I call that span across the creek "Bat Bridge." And whenever I cycle over it, however my legs burn or my lungs want more, I recall that fabulous first introduction to the bats and their mysterious choice of spaces to occupy.
My ride ended as serenely as it began, with some serious pressure on my bladder. The urge to pee and the setting sun conspired to leave me pumped for the air conditioned apartment. Dinner would be heating in a few. All in all, just perfect...
This is the first and great blog post, and the second is like unto it...