Bicycle
We had not spoken for years after the Incident. Discounting, of course, the clipped three sentence conversations on the phone that tried to prove that fifteen years of friendship still meant Something. We both seemed in a hurry and we were both glad to glad to hang up. Last year you forgot my birthday. I was surprised to realise that I didn't care.
Then you bought me a red bicycle. At an auction for unclaimed stolen goods.
In the queue to pick up the rest of the ex-stolen goods, I watched you roll a cigarette one-handed in that crushingly familiar manner. I suddenly remembered scampering up majestic Mortan Bay Fig trees with you at night, you wearing my jacket, cigarette dangling casually. I remember you teaching me how to ride in front of your unit, making me go on lumpy grass down to a sharp right to a path that stopped abruptly in front of a flight of stairs going down. I crashed into the wall a few times but you waved my protests on, and I was smugly victorious by the end of the day, waving by battle scars gleefully at anyone who would look.
The bicycle is red and sleek and I can't help grinning like a child. The brakes don't really work, even after my girlfriend ends up scavenging bits off my current wreck of bike to fix it. The bike is a beautiful disaster. I love it.
A few years ago I tried to climb a Morton with another of my friends. We scrabbled up, gasping with laughter under a canopy of stars. It wasn't the same.
I haven't written anything since we left each other's orbits.
I don't think I remember how.
Then you bought me a red bicycle. At an auction for unclaimed stolen goods.
In the queue to pick up the rest of the ex-stolen goods, I watched you roll a cigarette one-handed in that crushingly familiar manner. I suddenly remembered scampering up majestic Mortan Bay Fig trees with you at night, you wearing my jacket, cigarette dangling casually. I remember you teaching me how to ride in front of your unit, making me go on lumpy grass down to a sharp right to a path that stopped abruptly in front of a flight of stairs going down. I crashed into the wall a few times but you waved my protests on, and I was smugly victorious by the end of the day, waving by battle scars gleefully at anyone who would look.
The bicycle is red and sleek and I can't help grinning like a child. The brakes don't really work, even after my girlfriend ends up scavenging bits off my current wreck of bike to fix it. The bike is a beautiful disaster. I love it.
A few years ago I tried to climb a Morton with another of my friends. We scrabbled up, gasping with laughter under a canopy of stars. It wasn't the same.
I haven't written anything since we left each other's orbits.
I don't think I remember how.