On Cycling

I put the bicycle outside, as it had been sitting unloved and unused against a wall in my bedroom all year. I had taken it out for one solitary bike ride and while it was sort of exhilarating and everything, it was by the same token really precarious. Apparently riding around on a bike with flat tires, makes you feel that at any moment the bikes tires will buckle and all of a sudden be filled with or consumed by visions of nursing the iron shell of a bike by the side of a road, weeping inconsolably or something. And it was admittedly an attractive bike, some sort of ladies child bike from the sixties. It felt as if it was moulded from solid steel or cast iron. It lasted all of five minutes outside the flat before someone took it, even though I put a note on it that said "this bike will be yr jumanji".