One Minute

The sun came through the clouds exactly when we stopped. Eight of us, a group photo, someone laughing at something I've already forgotten. The Argeș behind us, wide and grey. Dobrogea still ahead. We left. One minute later, two were down. One walked away clean. The other didn't. A fractured knee on a line that looked like nothing. He said he didn't even feel it happen. That's the part that stays. Not the injury. Not the fear. The fact that absence takes one second and announces nothing. The terrain doesn't warn you. It doesn't build up to it. You're present or you're not, and the ground keeps a record of the difference. By late afternoon, six had gone home. Two of us rode the final stretch the way you ride when there's no one watching. Fast, clean, deliberate. The kind of riding that only happens when the noise leaves. I don't know if the day filtered us or if we filtered ourselves. Maybe those are the same thing.