Tales from Rural Maine: Cyclists' Eyes

I like to listen to audiobooks when I'm driving. This morning, I was listening to "The Girl on a Train" on my Kindle when the narrator described the windows of a home as being like "cyclists' eyes."

Her voice is perfect for narration. British and appropriately evocative, she performs the writer's story with a grace that allows my mind to flow along with it effortlessly, like I'm floating gently on an inner tube down a river in the sun. But when she said the windows were "like cyclists' eyes," I fetched up. My tube got snagged on a rock. She kept going, the river of words flowing along, but my mind wasn't listening any more; it was caught up on that simile. Cyclists' eyes? What was I meant to understand about cyclists' eyes?

I could tell by the way she dropped her voice and slowed down as she said it that it was meant to convey some level of seriousness. There was a sense implied in her tone that cyclists' eyes might portend a certain element of doom; the tone of "like cyclists' eyes" contained forboding.

As the story carried on without me, I spun around in an eddy, trying to detach myself from the rock of confusion that had prevented me from carrying on, but I was unable to proceed until I grasped the meaning of "cyclists' eyes."

The writer used this simile so plainly--without any further explanation--and she is a good writer, so I knew that collectively, as readers, we were meant to understand automatically what this simile meant. I felt the insecurity of incomprehension in the face of a clear assumption of easy understanding, but I was unwilling to give up and move on. I was certain I could puzzle it out, if only I focused hard enough.

Cyclists' eyes. What do I know about cyclists' eyes?

I pictured a middle-aged man, sinewy and tan, wearing an absurdly bright lycra outfit meant to convey, I think, confidence and conviction about his status as a member of a certain athletic club (cyclists' are a breed of their own), but which also, unwittingly, I think inherently conveyed a certain vulnerability and fear; those bright colors, it has always seemed to me, are meant to announce the presence of the rider, in the hope that he won't be struck down by passing automobiles. They are a plea for mercy and an announcement of strength all in one. Cyclists possess the grit of an endurance athlete--strength, stamina, courage--paired with, to American eyes, the patently silly flash of skin-clinging bike shorts and an absurd shirt in a blinding array of neon colors; both masculine and anti-masculine all in one. But what about their eyes...?

Then, I remembered! The writer is British. And in Britain, cycling is more mainstream, less of a quirky alterna-sport and perhaps more understood by the population? Perhaps the collective mind of the British readership understands that cyclists eyes are...?

My mind struggled to find the right gear. A ten-speed clicking through it's range, unable to engage as it faced a steepening hill. I pictured a cyclists' eyes, glazed, grimly determined, fixed on the road in front of him, facing the hills and the valleys--the deadly traffic and heat and wind and effort--with a firm resolve. Surely, this is what is meant by that house's windows looking like cyclists' eyes? Glazed and possessed of a grim determination?

That must be it.

I heard the clicking and spinning in my mind, as my thoughts continued to shift through gears, trying on this notion--windows glazed and possessed of a grim determination. Did that fit the scene she was describing? Was this gear the right one to get me up this hill of incomprehension?

Meanwhile, the story carried on. Having at least partly solved the puzzle, my mind tuned back into the narrator and I became aware that I had been missing important plot points as my gears spun around. I was also aware that my answer to the question, "What on earth are cyclists' eyes?" was both right and not quite right at all. I felt frustration in my belly as I realized how lost I was in the current plot points of the story, all for want of the ability to understand immediately what she meant about those windows and their eyes!

Because I was driving and listening on my Kindle, I would have to stop altogether and pull over, if I wanted to rewind until I found the point where I'd lost my traction. I didn't want to do that. If my thoughts could've articulated themselves, they would've said, "Grrrr." Their emoticon was a frowny face.

And then...it clicked.

"Sightless eyes."

The upstairs windows were like *sightless* eyes! (!!!) I hadn't misunderstood, I'd misheard.

I sighed, returning to my inner tube in the river of the story, now freed up to carry on; feeling somewhat hopelessly behind, but in my current circumstance unable to do anything about it.

I sighed again, and fixed my gaze on the miles ahead...with cyclists' eyes.