Just metal and bolts and plastic and fuel
By: Nick Lodge

Flight. I've flown before, but planes don't give the sensation of flying like riding does. There's a naked rush as you scream down and up a hill, around a corner. On either side certain death flicks by, too fast to focus on. You go faster and faster, harder and farther, you are the organic part of a machine. And then; you let go. You take you hands off the bars and stretch them outward. Time slows, everything becomes sluggish and blurred. You embrace the impending doom. You see your death in a thousand ways. Then you pass them by with a violent rumble.

At home, you disconnect and behold it, you stand and stare in bewilderment and you repeat in your head over and over, "It's just a machine."
But what a machine.

Nick Lodge.