"Dude...!"

He, the dude, was there just as I exited the bridge over the intersection of Highway 2 and 27th Street, a major north-south arterial. The bridge feels like flying over the traffic, and when you're down with the autos, it looks like flying over the traffic. The sun was just rising, and the clouds were painted with lavenders blending to pinks and oranges.

I had made it a point to leave early this morning. I've been trying to get to work earlier; doing so makes the commute easier -- it was much easier getting across O Street this morning -- and the office is more peaceful before everyone arrives. For autumn, it was muggy and warm, but the gusty wind was promising a change later tonight.

Traffic on the trail was light too. I'd only seen a few people along the way, and none for the last mile or so. The bridge has three segments. I was just leaving the first, and there he was.

The first thing I saw was his gray t-shirt, followed by his shades, helmet, and, finally, bike. I didn't notice the make, but it was rigged out for commuting. He was up, out of the saddle, hammering. The bike was all over the place, jerking from side to side, and coming right at me in my lane.

I hit the brakes, but because the path narrows over the bridges there weren't many places for me to go. He glanced up, noticed me, and jerked his bike over into his lane, almost losing it but somehow staying up on two wheels. I looked back over my shoulder to where he was wobbling over the bridge. My heart pounded both from exertion and the adrenaline that had just been dumped into my bloodstream. I tried to think of some way to express that, though we'd been lucky enough to avoid it, if he'd just calm down the probabilty that we would have ended up in a tangled mess at the end of the bridge would have been even less.

"Dude...!"