Lost and Found

Emily LaSita

My sneakers squished as I walked. The air was cool but milkshake thick.  It felt as though I was being spat on by the world. I took care not to roll the clumsy front tire of my bicycle over my soggy shoelaces. Untied and without hope, they dragged alongside my sad bike. I watched a little yellow leaf latch itself onto my front tire. With my every few steps it would depart, then reappear as it hitchhiked around on its way home. The rubber handlebars were cold and wet in my grip, the banana seat, too, but that didn’t make the idea of riding the bike, instead of walking beside it, any less inviting. What kind of fool steals a bicycle helmet but leaves the bike?

A large breath of wind hit me, accompanied by that delectable spit of the world. The moisture accumulated on the faces of my glasses, making my surroundings a blur. But I could feel the people flying past me and my bike,  warm inside their dry cars. I took off my spectacles in attempts to dry them but doing so caused my bike to lose consciousness. It flailed to the ground as if it was in need of Life Alert—stat. It did, too, because it had just barely escaped the claws of death! It had fallen into street, overstepping its bounds of the “sidewalk” or really, the region of tar road assigned to pedestrians, marked by a narrow white line to indicate, no cars allowed.

I bent down to rescue my poor soldier, very much aware of the possibility of decapitation I faced by doing so. But suddenly a red light reflected in the puddles and wet surface beneath us. The rushed noises came to a halt. I pulled my faithful companion to safety as well as the coiled bike lock which had slipped off the right handlebar.

Thankfully the lock was still intact despite the robbery I had faced earlier today. It makes sense as the lock was technically only protecting my bike, not securing the helmet, which I had only attached via the clasp on the helmet’s straps to the loop of the lock. Still, I could not fathom why a person would take an item I so long to get rid of, as its presence instantly takes me from “that kid who bikes himself to school” to “that kid who wears massive headgear every morning and comes into first period with a chewed-up-dog-toy for hair.”

At long last I made it to the corner, and I turned left away from the racing automobiles in the direction of dry clothes, warm air and hopefully a napkin to dry my eyeglasses. My street seemed apart from the world. It was its own separate planet. The birds chirped and bamboo swayed in the breeze. A tree, which stood at the end of my neighbor, Mr. Boris’, lawn, had one arm reaching across to the bamboo as if inviting them for tea. The glossy leaves that hung down from it kissed the top of my head with wet smooches. I heard a familiar creaking and then the brushing sounds of flowers. Mr. Boris was on his screened-in front porch watering his already, thoroughly saturated petunias. My lips ripped all over when I opened my mouth to say hello. My breath was gross, and my mouth was dry. I could use some of the tree’s tea and perhaps a mint leaf from Mr. Boris’s flowerpots.

I popped my bike over the white apron of my driveway and speedily made for the garage door. Through the crowd of water droplets on my glasses I saw something small. On the pavement in front of the garage door, like a scarred little turtle, lay my helmet. I reached down for it. Though raindrops slid off its impermeable, hard shell, some water found shelter in the padded inside, through the gaps on top. It had become a soaked black sponge.

I scooped it up. Underneath where the helmet had been resting, on a small area of dry tar was a tiny, pink, spotted-wet Post-it note.

Thanks, it read.

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