While bike riders face many obstacles on their trusty “steed”—from barking dogs to honking horns—there is perhaps no greater adversary than the wind. Or what the Greeks call ánemos. In Ancient Greek, the word was ἄνεμοι. Or anemoi—the plural of winds. When capitalized—as in “the Anemoi”—it referred to the gods who were each assigned a wind direction. These four being under the jurisdiction and reign of the “overriding” wind god, Aeolus. Leader supreme. Which meant that, as far as Aaron Patterson was concerned, he was the biggest asshole out of them all. The Anemoi were nothing compared to him. All they had was a cardinal direction to tinker with. But Aeolus, he had everything: north, east, west and south. The sadistic little bastard. Only he wasn’t so little, Aaron knew. For there is nothing more massive than a presence that is everywhere all at once…whenever and wherever it wants to be. Whenever and wherever it feels like it.

There had been a time in Aaron’s life when he found Greek mythology to be nothing more than a good source for eye-rolling. Unlike most other people, he wasn’t attracted, captivated or even remotely “titillated” by these myths. It was only later on in life, when recalling the part of The Odyssey where Aeolus gives Odysseus an advantageous wind to set sail with, that Aaron remembered just how sadistic wind or its “representation” could be. Because Aeolus didn’t simply (or charitably) give Odysseus some helpful wind and leave it at that. He also gave him a bag of shitty winds, knowing goddamn well Odysseus’ mates were going to unleash them because a group of straight men together makes for the highest levels of incompetence and fuckery-invoking.

Aaron probably wouldn’t have put so much thought into all this—mainly, Aeolus and a “cause” for wind being so capricious (beyond the surface “explanation” of “meteorology”)—if he hadn’t started biking everywhere in his early twenties. Not just for “functionality,” but because his job as a delivery person (he refused to accept the label “bike messenger”) required it. And no, as he had explained many times to many people, he had no intention of ever getting his driver’s license and further contributing to the demise of humans (and pretty much all other life on Earth) via the decimation of the environment. In any case, with the wind seemingly never on his side while biking, Aaron was starting to believe that maybe some of those “myths” (a.k.a. fairy tales) weren’t so mythic after all. That they were real. It would explain a lot, at least to the biking community, about why the wind was perennially at war with bike riders. If it could be assigned a certain “humanity,” it would make more sense to the average biker, who could understand the cruelty of the wind better if its schadenfreude stemmed from some godlike entity as opposed to the “non sequitur savagery” of an unfeeling, uncaring Mother Nature.

However, if there were gods behind the “cruelty,” it wouldn’t feel so arbitrary, therefore, so scary. Being able to “explain away” phenomena, however incongruously, makes it all easier to cope with somehow. That’s how Aaron felt about it anyway. And that’s why he chose—with willful conviction—to believe, more and more steadfastly, that wind gods were real. Though of course he would never say this out loud to anyone else, let alone to a fellow biker. But to himself, whenever the wind made biking insufferable, he would happily recite the explanation: Aeolus and the Amenoi are in a fucking bad mood again. That was all he could really do to keep himself from going totally off the rails. The deep end…or whatever you wanted to call “losing it over life (and its weather conditions) being capriciously harsh.” The notion of “no rhyme or reason” was far more infuriating to Aaron than the thought of a “huckster” god that was just fucking with him because He could. At least that meant there was something “higher” out there that was paying attention to him at all. That he wasn’t just some infinitesimal creature floating out there in the proverbial ether, being whipped around by the callous whims of a non-sentient universe.

And then one day, when Aaron was biking against a particularly strong wind current, pedaling and pedaling with all his might to battle against this atrocious element that seemed to feel so strongly about making him go as slowly as possible, he was actually knocked off the saddle. That’s how potent the gale was, how utterly insistent. Aaron hadn’t fallen off his bike since he was at least in his preteen era, and the sting of it was as much a result of surprise as it was legitimate pain. Having landed directly on his tailbone, Aaron couldn’t even move without screaming out in agony, leading him to believe that perhaps he had done damage to more than just his “coccyx.” Luckily (though also embarrassingly), there were a few passersby who saw (and heard) him. Despite Aaron’s protestations (the gut reaction of every American trying to avoid getting into hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of medical debt), these strangers were adamant about calling an ambulance.

At the hospital, Aaron was told that, although he was extremely fortunate that more injuries hadn’t been incurred, he had not only broken his tailbone, but also fractured his lower back. In other words, it was going to be a few months—minimum—before Aaron could even think about safely getting back onto a bike. Letting this news wash over him, he was slapped with the sudden epiphany that life was just as meaningless and random as he had always latently feared. That to try and talk himself into anything otherwise with his cockamamie theories and beliefs about Aeolus—or any other Greek gods and myths—was all part of a pathetic bid to invent significance where there was none.

After being released from the hospital the following afternoon, outfitted with crutches and a referral for physical therapy, he was met by his best friend, Felix, who, of all his friends, was the only person emotionally prepared to deal with the kind of mood and physical shape Aaron was going to be in. Parked in the red zone with his hazards on, Felix watched as Aaron, once such a portrait of health and vitality, hobbled through the automatic sliding doors. An unsettling flourish of certain American hospitals that lent them a kind of “mall quality” befitting such a juggernaut of an industry.

Felix could tell that Aaron didn’t see him right away, the brightness of the sun—burning with particular force today—catching in his eyes in such a way as to blind him to Felix. Indeed, Aaron was muttering to himself not only about how fucking hot it was, but also about what he presumed to be Felix’s lateness. As though deliberately trying to humiliate him by making him stand out here with his crutches even a moment longer than necessary.

And then, in an unexpected instant of respite, a cool breeze blew his way, not only providing relief from the heat, but shifting the sun’s angle ever so slightly enough to make Aaron see that Felix was right there in front of him. Aaron smirked as he looked up at the sky, telling Aeolus, “That little ‘gift’ doesn’t make up for what you’ve done to my body, you diabolical shit.” With that—which is to say, his “faith” in something, anything semi-restored—Aaron hobbled toward the car. But just because he had a “small exchange” with what he still called a “god” or “higher power,” it didn’t mean Aaron was naïve enough to make some avowal that he was going to be “back and better than ever” after this injury. Because wherever the wind blew him next, so to speak, Aaron knew only one thing for sure: he wasn’t going to be biking again. If he did, he certainly wasn’t going to do it as the primary means for securing his livelihood. The (often literal) uphill battle against the wind wasn’t worth it to him anymore.