Shadow sister
[Something I wrote in my head at the end of last week, cycling home.]
The bright full moon is floating down the river, trembling and fractured by the breeze. A rider’s lamp behind me spawns my shadow sister, moving in front of me, solid and hunched against the chill. She weaves left and right, now skimming across the grass, now sliding over the gravel path. I’m fascinated by my projected self, encountering the future ahead of me, but keeping me company on this cold, dark night.
Eventually, the rider passes me. My shadow sister slows then disappears, and I feel a sudden ridiculous pang of loss for something which was just a trick of the light. Despite knowing how she was born, I find myself looking for her for the rest of the journey, wondering if she’s around the next corner, or waiting for me in the trees.
Chopper
As I cycled through the park yesterday, I saw a young lad on a bike which had the unmistakable outline of a Raleigh Chopper. He was sitting back on the banana seat, hands loosely on the ape-hanger bars, sweeping graceful, joyful curves across the path in the late evening sun. He had a huge grin on his face, and it made me smile just to see how much he was enjoying his ride. I always wanted a Chopper when I was a kid, but my parents said it was an impractical bike1 so I got a more sensible ride. This chap’s Chopper was the ‘revival’ model, of course — they stopped making the original models, with their potentially castrating top-tube mounted gear lever, long before he was born.
When he saw me riding towards him with a smile on my face, he honked his horn — a lovely, rubber bulb horn with a clownish “honk honk” sound, which made my day.
1 Of course it was impractical and not particularly well-made, but that was half the fun of it. And it was cool. ↑
