November 1, 2016
The Bearded Man (Armada)
Icicles were beginning to form on his lengthy beard as he pushed the small, sputtering motorcycle to its limits. The bitter wind stabbed him in the face like a relentless barrage of daggers. He was the only idiot out on a bike in these miserable conditions, and on Christmas Eve, just before midnight, he was practically the only person on the road at all. Black ice all around, even the tiniest bit of misfortune could surely have sent The Bearded Man to his untimely doom. In fact, the odds were 9,000 to 1 that both he and the bike wouldn't survive the epic trip in one piece. He wondered: "Do they even have snow chains for motorcycle tires?" As if merely pondering the question would somehow make him a more responsible person. "Surely the gas tank must be approaching empty right now…" He thought to himself. As he cleared the last ridge coming out of the foothills, he could just make out the faint lights of a glowing town in the distance. He could probably walk from here if the gas ran out, but hell… It would take all night. So why? Why would he do this? What kind of crazy, stupid, idiotic, all-encompassing thing could make a normally rational man risk life and limb on a cold, dark night when every sane person would have stayed inside by a warm fire? But… To quote The Oracle from The Matrix… "You already know what I'm going to tell you."