While hanging out in Seattle, we walked EVERYWHERE. Didn’t matter that it was snowing, or that it was about 30 degrees out. With a cup of coffee and a winter jacket, the city is great on foot.
We passed this sad, abandoned, buried-in-leaves bike several times over the weekend. It’s piteousness sparked several discussions, ranging from “What happens to abandoned bikes?”* to “Why was the bike abandoned?”.
Since I’m an avid reader of fan fiction, I thought I’d write a fictional account of this bike’s abandonment.
Here we go, my first attempt to write a fictional story, considering my 12+ years of blogging:
I'm sad and lonely. Why did you leave me??
I think about it every day. My owner road me several times a week to commute for work. Although he sometimes weaved on and off sidewalks, and jumped over potholes and curbs, I always felt safe with him at my helm. Then he would lock me up to this pole, although it was with these skinny cable locks.
The other bikes told me that if he really loved me, he would use a u-lock on me, to prevent me from being stolen. But I was never stolen.
Now I wish I would be stolen. I wish someone would come snip these skinny cable locks, and claim me for their own. I’m so lonely, slowly being buried in a grave of leaves.
Why doesn’t he come back? Where did he go? Without someone to ride me to and fro, my life is purposeless. I know he didn’t get hit by a car while riding me, or run into a pedestrian.
Unless…
Unless he has a new.. bike? Could I have been replaced? Left out in the cold, with the leaves?
Why couldn’t have have given me to one of these people who walk by, who obviously don’t have a bike, because they are using their feet? Feet are inferior to my powerful wheels and gear train.
Regardless, I sit here, hoping to be stolen, noticed, reclaimed. An abandoned bike is an unused bike, which is a crime. Please. Someone take me home with you for the holidays. I’m still perfectly fine, I promise to be a good bike to you!
Don’t let me stay here to rust.. alone… in the leaves….
*There are several reclamation programs for abandoned bikes. But if you no longer want/need your bike, please donate it.
**Man, why are they playing such sad music in this Starbucks? I didn’t mean to write such a tale of woe.
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