I Love Motorcycles: Wind in the Hair
Episode 6: The Black Cumin Trip

The fire was dying, the orange embers gasping for air, but the darkness beyond the circle was anything but still. That sound—the clack-clack—was getting closer, rhythmic and metallic, like a giant clockwork insect.

„Peter,” Agatha whispered. She wasn’t looking at me; she was staring into the field of black cumin. The pale flowers were glowing with a faint, bioluminescent light that definitely wasn’t there an hour ago. „Do you see that? The stars… they’re reflected in the petals. But the constellations are all wrong.”

I reached for my boots, my movements feeling heavy, as if I were underwater. „It’s the scent, Agatha. Farid said the black cumin blooms differently at night. Maybe it’s a mild hallucinogen.”

„Hallucinogen? Please,” Banga’s voice drifted from the top of the Africa Twin. She was sitting perfectly upright, her goggles pushed up onto her forehead. „You humans always need a chemical excuse for magic. Something is coming, and it’s not a 'mild’ anything. It smells like old parchment and ozone.”

I stood up, feeling a strange vibration in the soles of my feet. Figa was already at the edge of the light, her tail stiff, her eyes fixed on a point between two rows of cumin. She let out a low, melodic whine—not a bark of fear, but a sound of recognition.

Suddenly, the air rippled.

A figure emerged from the purple haze of the fields. It wasn’t Farid. It was a tall, slender man wearing a suit that looked like it was tailored from moonlight and shadows. He carried a silver tray with two crystal glasses filled with a liquid that shimmered like liquid gold.

„The Master is not yet ready to see you,” the man said, his voice sounding like a thousand dry leaves skittering across a patio. „But he sends his regards. And his wine.”

Agatha stepped forward, her blonde hair catching the strange glow of the flowers. She looked utterly unfazed. „The Master? We were told this was a plantation, not a court. And who are you? An usher?”

The man bowed deeply. „I am merely the one who keeps the shadows in order. Your grandfather, Mikhail, was much more polite, my lady. He knew that in Persia, the line between a guest and a prisoner is as thin as a cat’s whisker.”

Banga hissed, her back arching. „Watch it, shadow-man. My whiskers are precision instruments.”

„Drink,” the man urged, stepping into the firelight. „The journey to the South is long, and the roads in the 'other’ Iran do not appear on your GPS.”

I looked at Agatha. Her eyes were wide, reflecting the glowing fields. I knew we should stay. I knew we should wait for morning. But the sound of the bone-flute was calling from the darkness, and the Africa Twins seemed to thrum with an energy of their own, as if they were impatient to ride into the dream.

„Peter,” Agatha said, taking one of the glasses. „I don’t think we’re in the Islamic Republic anymore.”

She took a sip, and as she did, the ground beneath us began to dissolve into a sea of stars.