Sahir learns to ride a bike

It is in many ways a rite of passage. A traumatic but necessary moment of truth, an enlightenment of sorts.

The bicycle.

Two wheels and faith. Improbable, post-industrial perambulation. And at first it seems impossible. Completely, laughably unrealistic. Instablity in extremis. Two circles that roll wobbly sceptic as your eyes. And when you sit on it, all your doubts are confirmed.

You totter drunk and fall left and fall right. You clunk and you clutter - you hurt, you look stupid and the smiles of the passers-by hold no kinship - only mockery.

But you are now enraged and you persist. It is perversity and hate that drives you back on the pole above the wheels. And when you savagely kick at the spinning pedals, suddenly there is a moment and you are moving and the wheels are turning and the bushes passing by. And then you fall again.

But that moment has given you a glimpse. A subtle, fleeting look into another world where everything is magic and people move without effort, their feet never touching the ground.

Now you are greedy and suddenly you dont feel the pain anymore. And you get on and this time you go a little further. And then a little further. And then suddenly, as if all the struggle never happened - you are riding.

You are flying, like mercury with winged feet. Moving many times further than you should given the effort.

And what seemed unimaginably complex a moment ago is suddenly and forever childlike simplicity.