Slide

I can’t see how I could have avoided it.  Maybe I don’t know enough about operating a motorbike or maybe the conditions were such that the tumble and the resulting minor injuries were inevitable, but either way, I cannot see how I could have acted differently - coming down a steep gravel road (a wrong turn, we would later find out), carrying my friend, her fully-loaded pack, and my fully-loaded day-pack, saying aloud, “I thought this road was supposed to be paved?” at the same instant as the brakes locked and the bike kept skidding forward, the back wheel slowly sliding to the left - to prevent  myself and my passenger from ending up lying in the dust next to the bike, both anxiously checking the severity of our wounds.  I reached this conclusion in the immediate aftermath, as my unscathed passenger found and made use of the first-aid kit that she had conveniently brought along, and I looked with curiosity at my shaking hands, a side-effect of adrenaline for me that has also been known to manifest itself when I win a big hand at Texas Hold-Em.

I tore the skin off of the tip of the big toe on my right foot, sustained some minor scrapes and cuts on my right shin and right elbow, and scraped enough skin off of my right palm to compel me to compulsively turn over the hand and stare at the wound during any idle moment.  My passenger, apparently as a result of careful planning and visualization, had thrown her feet and hands in the air and come to a soft landing squarely on her sizable pack, escaping without even drawing blood.