Cracks, Kindness & Comeback | Passion Projects | Education | 56215

19th May, 2025

I woke with a plan in my chest —

To pedal faster, bear more,

Let the sun of the afternoon fray my sweat,

Let the road witness what a courier’s heart contains.

Session time etched in mind:

12:15pm to 5:30pm,

A span of hours where each kilometer thrums

With hope, hunger, and half-remembered poems.

By 2:30pm, four deliveries made,

Legs warm, lungs even,

When Muradpur became familiar under my wheels,

Fate sent me five orders of biryani to select —

From the snug warmth of 7Dayz.

Speed whispers liberation,

But liberation collides with fate at thirty kilometers an hour —

A pick-up door swings open, uncaring as a yawn,

And my body becomes a tale

Uttered in abrupt collision and shaking handlebars.

The crash was metallic-tasting,

But no time for tasting fear —

Biryani orders were waiting; hunger loomed larger than hurt.

Chose my cycle, my dented rim humming protest,

But I continued on riding —

Handed over every parcel, for riders do.

Only then, with the last handover,

When adrenaline faded and stillness spoke,

Did the crack reveal its truth:

My front rim — cracked, betrayed by asphalt and fate.

Could no longer ride.

Sitting became days, waiting,

Restless hands, ghost-pedaling legs in memory.

But kindness beats to its own tempo.

On Fridays, a younger brother of the brotherhood of wheels

Donated his cycle — an action out loud in silence:

Ride, even steel finds rest; spirit should not.

And I rode — not every day, but enough times to remember

Why I was taken by the road.

Then, on 22nd July, 2025,

Hope came knocking again — not as a door,

But as a spur-of-the-moment message:

$40 gift, won for a few honest words

In the Then vs. Now and Passion with Purpose Challenge from BSMe2e.

A thoughtful surprise,

Something greater than money — it was repair, rebirth

The squeak of new spokes singing beneath my weight.

Bolted on the rim, added a disc brake to the front —

The wheel rotated, and so did good fortune.

Saved some, for tomorrow’s dubious potholes,

For those moments when faith is as tenuous as air.

Now, when the city calls at midday,

And I clip in, prepared to deliver more than food —

I remember the door, the drop, the crack,

And the arms that came back to lift me up:

The grace of a brother, a test’s reward,

The stubborn thud of my own heartbeat demanding,

Not yet. Ride again.

Because in this messanger’s log,

Cracks do not end tales —

They show where the road taught me

To fall, mend, and the quiet power of getting back up.

Wheels turn, words pile up.

And with every ride, I carry both —

Stories that fought pavement,

And optimism that showed up wrapped in kindness and steel.