an image of buildings, shimmering slightly. I look down at the map and it must be Bowman. I think about ice water and air conditioning.
On the street and sidewalks of Bowman we see almost no one, even though plenty of parked cars show they're here. All inside. We swing the machines into an angled parking place with a tight turn that points them outward, for when we're ready to go. A lone, elderly person wearing a broad-brimmed hat watches us put the cycles on their stands and remove helmets and goggles.
``Hot enough for you?'' he asks. His expression is blank.
John shakes his head and says, ``Gawd!''
The expression, shaded by the hat, becomes almost a smile.
``What is the temperature?'' John asks.
``Hundred and two,'' he says, ``last I saw. Should go to hundred and four.''
He asks us how far we have come and we tell him and he nods with a kind of approval. ``That's a long way,'' he says. Then he asks about the machines.
The beer and air conditioning are calling, but we don't break away. We just stand there in the hundred-and-two sun talking to this person. He is a stockman, retired, says this is pretty much ranch country around here and he used to own a cycle years ago. It pleases me that he should want to talk about his Henderson in this hundred-and-two sun. We talk about it for a while, with growing impatience from John and Sylvia and Chris, and when we finally say good-bye he says he is glad to have met us and his expression is still blank but we sense that he really meant it. He walks away with a kind of slow dignity in the hundred-and-two sun.
In the restaurant I try to comment on this but no one is interested. John and Sylvia look really out of it. They just sit and soak up the air-conditioned air without a move. The waitress comes for the order and that snaps them out of it a little, but they are not ready and so she goes away again.
``I don't think I want to leave here,'' Sylvia says.
An image of the elderly man outside in the wide- brimmed hat comes back to me. ``Think what it was like around here before air conditioning,'' I say.
``I am,'' she says.
``With the roads this hot and that bad back tire of mine, we shouldn't go more than sixty,'' I say.
No comment from them.
Chris, in contrast to them, seems to be back to his normal self, alert and watching everything. When the food comes he wolfs it down and then, before we are half-finished, asks for more. He gets it and we wait for him to finish.
Miles later and the heat is just ferocious. Sunglasses and goggles are not enough for this glare. You need a welder's mask.
The High Plains break up into washed-out and gullied hills. It is all bright whitish tan. Not a blade of grass anywhere. Just scattered weed stalks and rocks and sand. The black of the highway is a relief to look at so I stare down at it and study how the blur whizzes by underfoot. Beside it I see the left exhaust pipe has picked up a bluer color than it has ever had before. I spit on my glove tips, touch it and can see the sizzle. Not good.
It's important now to just live with this and not fight it mentally -- mind control -- .
I should talk now about Phædrus' knife. It'll help understand some of the things we talked about.
The application of this knife, the division of the world into parts and the building of this structure, is something everybody does. All the time we are aware of millions of things around us...these changing shapes, these burning hills, the sound of the engine, the feel of the throttle, each rock and weed and fence post and piece of debris beside the road...aware of these things but not really conscious of them unless there is something unusual or unless they reflect something we are predisposed to see. We could not possibly be conscious of these things and remember all of them because our mind would be so full of useless details we would be unable to think. From all this awareness we must select, and what we select and call consciousness is never the same as the
On the street and sidewalks of Bowman we see almost no one, even though plenty of parked cars show they're here. All inside. We swing the machines into an angled parking place with a tight turn that points them outward, for when we're ready to go. A lone, elderly person wearing a broad-brimmed hat watches us put the cycles on their stands and remove helmets and goggles.
``Hot enough for you?'' he asks. His expression is blank.
John shakes his head and says, ``Gawd!''
The expression, shaded by the hat, becomes almost a smile.
``What is the temperature?'' John asks.
``Hundred and two,'' he says, ``last I saw. Should go to hundred and four.''
He asks us how far we have come and we tell him and he nods with a kind of approval. ``That's a long way,'' he says. Then he asks about the machines.
The beer and air conditioning are calling, but we don't break away. We just stand there in the hundred-and-two sun talking to this person. He is a stockman, retired, says this is pretty much ranch country around here and he used to own a cycle years ago. It pleases me that he should want to talk about his Henderson in this hundred-and-two sun. We talk about it for a while, with growing impatience from John and Sylvia and Chris, and when we finally say good-bye he says he is glad to have met us and his expression is still blank but we sense that he really meant it. He walks away with a kind of slow dignity in the hundred-and-two sun.
In the restaurant I try to comment on this but no one is interested. John and Sylvia look really out of it. They just sit and soak up the air-conditioned air without a move. The waitress comes for the order and that snaps them out of it a little, but they are not ready and so she goes away again.
``I don't think I want to leave here,'' Sylvia says.
An image of the elderly man outside in the wide- brimmed hat comes back to me. ``Think what it was like around here before air conditioning,'' I say.
``I am,'' she says.
``With the roads this hot and that bad back tire of mine, we shouldn't go more than sixty,'' I say.
No comment from them.
Chris, in contrast to them, seems to be back to his normal self, alert and watching everything. When the food comes he wolfs it down and then, before we are half-finished, asks for more. He gets it and we wait for him to finish.
Miles later and the heat is just ferocious. Sunglasses and goggles are not enough for this glare. You need a welder's mask.
The High Plains break up into washed-out and gullied hills. It is all bright whitish tan. Not a blade of grass anywhere. Just scattered weed stalks and rocks and sand. The black of the highway is a relief to look at so I stare down at it and study how the blur whizzes by underfoot. Beside it I see the left exhaust pipe has picked up a bluer color than it has ever had before. I spit on my glove tips, touch it and can see the sizzle. Not good.
It's important now to just live with this and not fight it mentally -- mind control -- .
I should talk now about Phædrus' knife. It'll help understand some of the things we talked about.
The application of this knife, the division of the world into parts and the building of this structure, is something everybody does. All the time we are aware of millions of things around us...these changing shapes, these burning hills, the sound of the engine, the feel of the throttle, each rock and weed and fence post and piece of debris beside the road...aware of these things but not really conscious of them unless there is something unusual or unless they reflect something we are predisposed to see. We could not possibly be conscious of these things and remember all of them because our mind would be so full of useless details we would be unable to think. From all this awareness we must select, and what we select and call consciousness is never the same as the
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