The Smiting Fence

A fence smote me a few weeks ago. I’m glad I was on my way back from a long bike ride, only because otherwise I wouldn’t even have had the chance to enjoy my bike ride. It had been a glorious morning, and I was biking with a very good friend.

I carefully selected the word smote because the action felt vengeful and ancient, like something out of the Old Testament. By the way, Old Testament is a Christian-centered term. Jews call it the Bible. The most woke term is the Hebrew Scriptures.

(Ugh. No. I just can’t use the word woke that way. It’s not for me. You won’t read it again from me, unless I’m using it as the past tense of wake.)

But the word smite and its past tense smote are perfect for this situation. Just the words I want. I do find its past perfect imperfect because it’s smitten. As in, I was smitten by the fence. That gives entirely the wrong idea, I assure you.

I had ridden my bike by the smiting fence dozens of times over the past year or so, on my way east to the San Francisco Bay Trail, and then on my way west to get home. It’s a chain-link fence that hugs a slightly bumpy neighborhood bike path. It hugs the path rather tightly, and I had thought that meant it was an affectionate fence. I assumed the fence liked me, or at least was okay with me. It wasn’t. All along it had been plotting to smite me.

Right at the smiting spot, the path takes a sharpish turn, and the fence is on the inside of the turn. In the past couple of months, green fabric was added to the fence because some construction was going on behind it, in the commercial buildings owned by a company whose flagship buildings tower over my town, but which is probably about to move to a more corporate-friendly state. Clearly it was secret construction, because the green fabric was perfectly opaque and covered the entire height and length of the fence, say ten feet by many hundreds of feet. Even when the opaque green fabric was added, I still didn’t suspect a thing.

Ah, the innocence of few-weeks-ago me.

Some days I rode alone, and some days with my husband, but on the day of the smiting I was riding with my close friend, an excellent cyclist whose even greater strengths lie in pointing out the beauty around us and the joy within us. I’m going to call her Lee to conceal her true identity from the fence. I don’t want it to go after her next.

On this glorious day, Lee and I were on the return trip past the fence when it smote me. I was closer to the fence than Lee, and we were talking companionably. Lee took care not to crowd me around the blind turn. She’s present and conscientious that way.

That day the fence didn’t want Lee. It wanted me. It jumped out and smote me from the side. Scared the heck out of Lee and wrecked my back a little. I also hit my head, but thanks to my husband, the ol' noggin was protected by the newest, finest helmet technology. I’m thinking of doing a testimonial for the company that made it, Giant.

A few dazed seconds later I took stock of my post-smite condition, and assured Lee I was more or less OK. Then she did the best thing ever. Something that made the smiting very close to worthwhile to me, for this island of a person that I am.

Lee got really mad at the fence. She started taking pictures of it, demanding to know exactly where it had hit me. I didn’t know. My well-protected brain didn't record those drama-filled seconds. And the fence had already jumped back to its original position and it was acting all nonchalant. That smug so-and-so of a fence had nary a scratch, except for two blobs of white bird poop. Revealing nothing.

Lee’s fury with the smiting fence, her certainty of the fence’s total responsibility for the crash, her angry photos, her calls for justice made me feel so very cherished. Defended. Loved.

It’s quite an experience for this island of a person.

[Close-up of the smiter, showing bird poop blotches. For those of you inclined to argue that the green fabric is not opaque, please keep in mind that this photo was taken nearly normal to the fence, while I was approaching the fence from an oblique angle. Photo creds: Lee]