Last Friday, as I was cycling to Hove station, I
internalised an ode to my bike. Although far from the best bicycle of land, it
has been providing me a great service of late; the one mile ride to the station
is significantly easier than the one mile walk and allows me to arrive at my
workplace in a more composed condition. The cycle also saves me £2.60 a day,
the difference between an off-peak bus and an off-peak train fare, and permits
me to push my timekeeping skills to the upmost limit; an additional fifteen
minutes lie in is always appreciated. And, no one is denying my quads could do
with a workout, albeit merely a mile ride. So there I was, cycling along one
Friday morning, not quite crazy enough to proclaim my love to an inanimate
object aloud, but certainly complimenting my bike privately, thinking today
would be an ok day.
That evening I declared to Mike that my bike would become a
character. I was not going to personify it, that would be a bit shit, but I was
going to include it, somewhere. The odd thing is the finality of my ode was the
theft of this now cherished, near immortal, bike. Imagine my surprise the
following day when Mike, who had clearly practiced his announcement prior to
delivery, informed me that my bicycle had indeed been stolen. They had bolt
cutters, my bike lock was vulnerable, boom, bye bye bike. I would have been
mightily pissed off had just a wheel been taken, a single wheel is barely of
use to anyone, so initially I was glad that the bicycle (which I now regret not
naming, as a pronoun would have made this an infinitely more interesting post)
at least lived on to function for someone else, even if that someone was
actually a thief. Then, with a wry smile as the cynical bitter Liv rose up
within, I imagined the sharp incline we live on and the poor functionality of
my said bicycle’s brakes.
The following Monday was one of those days. Westerly wind
and rain lashing the bedroom window, the air temperature reminiscent of a New
Zealand May rather than a British one. The gas faltered, hot water was
intermittent, my shower cold. Freezing, I
dug through the wardrobe in search of my winter boots, slid them on, broke the
zip, cast them aside in disgust and resorted to my chucks, an utterly
inappropriate footwear choice for pouring rain. I did not have enough change
for a bus, therefore the train was my only transport option, and you know what?
At that point in time it would have been quite handy to have had a bike. I
started off on foot, rain pit, pat, pat, plop on the hood of my raincoat,
glaring at the all bikes on my street that had not been stolen. All the bikes
with locks identical to mine. It was
purely chance that my bike had been chosen.
The remains of a bike |
I would not say I was angry, I was just frustrated at the inconvenience.
Due to an overloaded NHS, my weekly PICC line care cannot be performed at the
hospital I work at. I am required to attend a ten minute appointment at the
hospital along the coast, three miles from Hove station, two miles from my
house. Again, a bicycle would make that journey substantially easier. Without
even really complaining (a rarity for me I know), just mentioning, casually,
the theft to a friend of mine, her boyfriend immediately offered his bike for
my use should I require it. What an exceptionally kind gesture. I would like to
think that I would have made an equally generous offer had the situation been
reversed, but one can never be entirely sure. It is probably by now apparent to
you all that I do not hold the world in high esteem. I have lived a comfortable
life, albeit shrouded in guilt, relatively unaffected by the worst of humanity,
however it only requires a fleeting glance at media headlines to slump back in
dismay. Slump back on my cosy couch, with plenty of food in my fridge.
With my cynical view of the human race in mind, receiving an
offer of a bike came as quite a shock. Granted, you are friends with your
friends for a reason, but a quick memory flick through the fog of my mind
revealed that I do not associate with a single person that would steal a bike. Yes, everybody is required to deal with a
difficult personality or two, but I sincerely doubt that any of my difficult
personalities would steal a bike. Put them in a room with corporates discussing
profit margins and yeah, sure, they will probably make a decision decimating an
entire distant community so they can continue to drive their Lamborghinis, but
would they make that first hand, hot blooded, theft? Which is worse? A family
of four starving due to redundancy brought on by record shareholder pay-outs or the theft
of a pampered cancer patient’s bike? Unfortunately, I think I know which would make
the headlines first. These people; the bicycle thieves, the advisory panels for
billion pound companies, they are faceless unknowns. They are the humanity I
get so irate about, yet in essence they are not humanity at all. I imagine a
group human bodies, each body with a grey MS paint style block where the face
should be. Most of us do not associate with these people in day to day life, yet
I let myself become obsessed by their very existence. Independently each of
these individuals would deny they have reached grey block face level, but when
surrounded by others with grey block face tendencies, they are engulfed by the
shade of solid grey.
And then it hits me. Here I am, almost indulging myself with
a degree of self-pity - “Why do they not think of their victims?” – preaching, imploring,
individuals to consider others, and yet I have not contemplated why the culprit
took my bike in the first place. I gave some thought to the feelings of the bike
itself, but not to the individual behind the action. Perhaps they were being
pursued, in the dark, in the rain, rapidly, half panicked, half crazed, and chanced
upon a pair of bolt cutters discarded on the footpath, my bicycle the first
they saw with their new found tool, snip, heave, grind, relief; away they ride,
my bike the hero. Or, rather, they had pressing family matters, at the hospital
say, a desperate need to reach their father’s bedside, no transport available
in the dark and stormy night, but, fortunately, access to heavy duty tools and
a stranger’s bike, the theft made without further deliberation, summoning all
their physical strength, battling the unrelenting gales, arriving in the ward,
short of breath and drenched to the bone, wet black hair plastered across their
forehead, the exact moment their paternal figure, in a harsh dying whisper,
announces “I love you son” for the first time.
Both are unlikely scenarios. What is probable, however, is
that whoever took my bike was in a situation far worse than mine. Be their
reasoning driven by finances, dependency, ill health; they saw velocipede theft
as their only option. I have been inconvenienced; their entire life may have been destroyed. Should I leave my helmet and a note ensuring they are practicing cycle safety?
Or should I shrug my shoulders, remember all the times I cursed my cheap rattling
rusty bike, its limited gears, clunky tires, poor braking capability and
general sluggishness; should I remember those faults and hope that whoever took
my bike gained more convenience than I inconvenience?
It is difficult, when things are tending to go awry, to
focus on any positives. It is easy to be consumed by all that is wrong. I left
the house allowing ample walking time to catch my regular train. A last minute
platform alteration, a subsequent rush, half my coffee slopped over my hand and
down my one pair of clean jeans, my phone, miraculously, lodged in my arm pit; right
arm rising, attempting to stabilise the takeaway coffee, left arm squeezed
inwards ensuring the phone does not drop to the ground, head tilting to the
left as the falling phone tugs at my middleclass earphones, inappropriately yet
instinctively staggering around the platform desperately trying to maintain my
balance, despairingly watching my train depart from the wrong platform. All remaining
emotional effort is spent trying to prevent the irrational tears from welling
up behind my crocked, buckled glasses, and suppress the pressing urge to exasperatedly
cry “Can something please just go right for me?!” This, of course, is when I appositely
realise I have forgotten to take all my medication for the day. Again.
In these situations, which I regrettably admit are becoming
increasingly frequent, it is difficult to remain, if remain is the correct
word, pragmatic. When the weather is poor, the bus late, the traffic resembling
a car park rather than a working road, each minute of delay dissolving my
annual leave; it is difficult to remember that the bus is late for all on-board,
others in the spontaneous traffic jam are also delayed, and it is raining on
anyone who happens to be in Sussex. My friend has a saying: ‘this too shall
pass’. I think mine shall be ‘Are you yet desperate enough to steal a bike?’ Ok,
so it is not as eloquent, but hopefully it will allow me a little perspective
when I catch myself in the wrath of Holden Caulfield like self-absorption,
which is, in fact, my life.