September 2nd, 2007
I finally left the garage today and was thrown into the back of a pick up. Though I prefer a bike rack atop a car, so the wind can blow through my bars, I was please to find myself beneath the sun and way from the lingering scent of bug spray. As we drove at higher speeds than I can attempt, I let my tires rotate, knowing the humans would simply assume it was a draft.
My hind tire has been flat for sometime. The man who loaded me and a young lady rolled me into a bike’s version of the ER. I remember them saying “Thanks” and leaving before I was heaved on to a diagnosis table and put under.
When I came-to, the young lady was standing at the ER’s counter and talking to my doctor.
“Whoever rode this bike rode it rough. It’s a cruiser, not a dirt bike,” Doctor said.
The young lady glanced at me before saying, “Well, it was my grandmother’s, but I will be sure to question her.”
She handed him some paper, took me by my handles and lifted me back into the pick-up.
The next location we stopped at was a house. I eyed the garage wearily. But before I had time to contemplate the suffocating matter, I was decapitated.
The last thing I remember was pain from forceful shoves and a blueberry.
September 3rd, 2007
My head and tire were reunited. The young lady was with me we cruised through gray buildings. I was carried through a room where three other humans were sitting on fluffy objects. Before I could observe them further, my front wheel hit something.
“Oops, screen,” the young lady exclaimed.
The other humans smirked.
The rest of the day I sat in a fenced cubed. Small, but at least beneath the sun.
September 4th, 2007
I heard the glass door slide and woke up. The young lady was there. She was not looking at me but carrying on a conversation with one of those humans I got a glimpse at.
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know. Target. A journey.” The young lady replied.
“Do you have a lock?” The human asked, half her attention on a color-changing box.
“Yep.”
The young lady lifted me back through the room and set me on concrete. As soon as she shut the door, we were off.
It felt good to be sailing asphalt again. To watch houses and cars blur out of my vision. To hear dogs barking at me. And to smell nature instead of garage chemicals. We glided over sidewalks, around people, through water…
“I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike!!! I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride it where I like!!! You say black, I say white. You say bark, I say…” The young lady started singing, loudly.
What’s this? I thought. She has written a song for me! A song for us!
We rode through one neighborhood to the next. Some parts had houses beautiful with nice yards (some even had no garages).
Others were run down apartments with little humans playing with an ugly shaped ball in the street while big humans put brown glass to their lips.
Before the sun fully set, the young lady and I drifted back through the gray buildings. And she carried me to the small cube… this time remembering the screen.