James Hughey
I stepped outside to look at the freshly fallen snow this morning, sipping
some herbal tea that my roommate had made a few minutes earlier. It was
the second time this season that it had snowed; I was actually impressed with
how lucky we were with the weather this year.
I searched up and down the street as I normally did, a brief smile upon
my face at the laughter coming from the neighborhood children who had
been given a day out of school.
The bicycle was still laying in the ditch. I don't know who it belongs to; I'm
always afraid to move it. The neighbors are kinda fickle, and I'm not a
social enough person to go around asking. But the bicycle had been laying
there for a week now and nobody has come to claim it.
I take another sip from the tea. I've always preferred sweet tea. Lipton's especially.
It's good for my voice. The bike is a mystery, sitting in the ditch looking lonely
and abandoned. Covered in rust from its old age, like an old man whose friends
had abandoned him when he became bitter.
I could comfort the bike, give it a new friend. But I'm much too big for it. Besides,
that's crazy talk--it's just a bicycle after all. I remember having good times with my
bicycle, riding it to and from school each day. Taking my shortcuts through
the grass, chaining it to the staircase at the bottom of the apartment complex I lived
in with my mother.
For all I know the bike is stolen, and somebody just left it there as a cruel prank
against another child. The world is full of cruel pranks. One of the cruelest of all
pranks is aging, like the bicycle, aging and being left alone . . . alone with its
rust and memories.
My tea has grown cold. Time to pour it out and put some Lipton's
in the pot. Lipton's tastes better when it's cold, while cold herbal tea
tastes like stained water. There's something about that. Maybe I'll put it in
a movie. Maybe even make some S'mores.
END