Wild Hearts

In Love With An Idea

We pass a fast food place and the scent of chicken is an assault to the senses. All these delights, happen in a matter of seconds. Though Ryder slows with the dips and bobs of traffic, mostly we're a phantom that slips through the streets, weaving in and between cars and taxis, skirting past double-decker buses and just making it through red lights. If I thought Ryder was reckless in his car, this is taking it to a whole new level.

Insane or not, I'm loving every second. I don't know how I know, but I just know I'll be safe with him. That he'll deliver us to the edge, yet flaunt his way past death's door, explosive grin, a wink and a blown kiss before he salutes the grim reaper and walks that line knowing he'll never have to worry about falling.

It must be a liberating feeling, and though he says nothing, I feel it emanating off him like an aura of bold and powerful insubordination. I am intoxicated by it, and I think I know why I can stand the dances with the devil, if only for the surge of adrenaline like drugs to the system. For his defiant smirk and his hand in mine, leading me through heaven and hell to show me what it means to live. And never look back.

And then, as if the world itself draws in a shuddered breath, everything seems to slow. Time is my plaything, or Ryder's—I can see everything in greater detail. The eruption of champagne from a bottle popped open, the liquid inside shooting through the air in beads of saffron brilliance. A party at a pub, a birthday. The woman of the hour, hair torn wild in the wind, her face captured in a tableau of ecstasy.

Across the street, a flock of pigeons take flight, a flurry of wings, fleeing as a small boy escapes his mother's grasp and runs towards them, face painted in juice. Nearby, a young man narrowly avoids being hit by a taxi, and the driver yells expletives, fist pumping up and down, veins showing. Ryder breaks through them, once more leaving the flow of traffic behind him.

Hell was found in the slums of the city, but as depressing a place as that row of warehouses and crumbling businesses was, we now glide into a part of the city that even I dare not tread. The remnants of Broken Tide, a neighbourhood swallowed, a beach once so full of joy, now devoid of life for over two decades. Maybe people did enter ground zero, to try and reclaim a piece of this stolen history, but the sea had never truly finished its attack. After the recent flooding two years back, even the authorities had given up.

Thankfully, Ryder directs us away from the beach, left past a string of derelict shops, a park right out of a horror film, and further on. Eventually, we reach a pier. Traffic throbs and hums not too far off, and I know we're on the edge of this forgotten district. A stone's throw from civilisation, but still pushing just enough into a ghost city.

Ryder begins to slow as we approach our obvious destination: Urban Zenith: amusement park/fairground. It was once a tourist spot, pretty much the only reason to come to this broken dump. I remember wanting to go here, asking—begging mum and dad to take me. Despite repeated attempts to tell me that it was broken down, and hundred-thousand times of me asking when they were gonna fix it, it took me a lot longer than I'd care to admit to finally grow up and realise that was never gonna happen.

We pull up by the main gate, and Ryder kicks the stand down before cutting the engine and glancing over at his shoulder to me. Realising his visor is still down, he flicks it up and meets me with that familiar grin, yet its noticeably more restrained, like a light dimmed.

I try and return the smile, but it's too forced, and I end up just dropping it.

"I just wanted to talk."

"I know," he says. "Just walk with me."

I want to argue. But I hold my tongue and know patience is the key here. Even if patience isn't my strongest suit. My fingers are already fidgeting, scrunching up the corner of my shirt as I climb off his bike. I pause, taking one more curious glance at it.