Like I invented it

Eddying with a pack of skater boys in the diesel wake of an Out Of Service bus, I leave Harvard Square to arch over the bridge (taillights flicking past) and slide alone into the Charles River path. Swaying between half-seen trees in the park, I glance over to see I have a mirror: a crew team, gliding across the water like the blade of a frictionless skate, pacing me, a spindle of paleness begun and ended by two dots of light. I hear no water noises, just the megaphone squawk of the coach in the follow boat, and the marching-boot slaps of the unison oars hitting the river, and the orc-shouts of the rowers keeping time — and suddenly I know I want to reach my bridge before they do. I'm grinning as my tires hiss over the smooth blacktop, pushing my feet down again and again, chasing the pale moon-circle of light on the asphalt in front of me, wondering when I last felt so unencumbered in this city. I suck in a big black breath of cold night as I lose them in the trees, and I don't know if they've pulled ahead, or I have, or if the link between us persists even out of sight, keeping us synchronized — but no, I'm there first, turning onto the bridge, dismounting to watch them arrow toward me ("Keep it going! Push through!"). They pass beneath my widespread legs, like I'm some Colossus of Roads, and they suddenly, for an instant, have faces and jerseys and straining shoulders, before they're gone and the river below me is just a silent black mirror.