BIKES

            Speeding down 5^th avenue beige Japanese bicycle, a group of disgruntled construction workers on a lunch break whistle at the woman in her white summer dress appear for a flash on my left. The have already gone but I already know, as sure as I know that my legs will keep spinning the pedals, that those men will remember the woman in the white summer dress as an ideal. They will return to their homes, hop on to their exercise bike in hopes of shedding the few extra beers they had the night before for the woman in the white summer dress.

            Zigzagging through a crowded street in NoHo, my body feels one with my bike. My feet are fused as one with the pedals; I sense every minor crevice in the black, tarry street pavement as if was walking bare foot. I peer into a yellow cab and see a child staring at me, his eyes betraying a sentiment of jealousy. He wishes he could have the freedom I have; feeling the breeze go through my hair as a cruise down the streets; seeking the fastest routes through labyrinths of traffic; the rush of narrowly avoiding an accident with cars or pedestrians, the most hated foes of my kind. 

            He city around me functions like the wheels of a bicycle, it maintains a constant cycle through the day and the night; pedestrians wait patiently for the walking signal as cars zoom by at full speed, blitzing the other side of the street like bicyclists shot-up with steroids as soon as the white luminescent walking figure appears. Automobiles quietly follow the traffic laws, causing waves of cars to roar down the avenues in cycles. Only I can break these cycles, snaking and winding between stationary vehicles as if they were obstacle cones and biking through red lights between two waves of cars.

In the corner of my eye, a woman’s slender and smooth legs appear to be extensions of her bike pedals. The white and red frame of her bike, with its small Hello Kitty stickers appear to be a rolling candy cane, waiting to melt between the scorching sun above and the hot black pavement. To my surprise, she has broken the cycle of the city as well, gliding without any care through an intersection as a new wave of cars has just entered it. Before I realize what has happened, she is gone, free to drift through the streets of New York forever.