Bike That is Not a Bike

Sahana biked to our first date. I remember seeing her bike grow larger and larger on Chapel Street. Her bike was dark green and her bike’s handles were soft, cruelty-free leather. I remember Sahana descended wearing a cool blue snapback instead of a helmet. Gently she set her palm on the seat, as if her dark green bike were a dog that required soothing.

Six months later, the fall. Sahana said she loved me, and could she teach me how to ride a bike? I said I love you, and absolutely not. I shook my head furiously and shifted the subject to the coral reefs. They’re dying, I said. Losing all their color.

She ignored that. Instead she asked why I was so weirdly opposed to learning how to bike. I stiffened. I didn’t tell her about my early days of little red bicycle— I’d fallen off, my mom had cried, the training wheels were left on and the red bicycle retired. Not knowing how to bike is embarrassing. Also the red bicycle story reminds me of my mom.

Instead I told Sahana about how an old boyfriend tried to teach me. Annoying story. For our one-year anniversary he wanted us to bike to Lighthouse Point and spend the day sinking into the sand. I didn’t. Still he insisted. He said I’d love it. Fine, I said, when he asked for the eighth time. Okay.

When the old boyfriend failed I was curt with him. In the following days I felt a gripping resentment – for his making me do something I had no interest in (preferred walking), his witnessing my spectacular failure (continuously fell off rental bike), and his forcing me to tell red bicycle story (didn’t want to lie).

But he did try, I added. It was just impossible. I couldn’t ride the bike.

Sahana listened carefully and said, Okay. She said she heard me. She said that now, though, since I’d abandoned men, everything was possible. I said that was bullshit. I said, Actually, lots of coral is already dead. Bleached. I said even with global political consensus, the Great Barrier Reef won’t regain all its colors.

Sahana amended her statement. She said, Many things were possible. Did I want to learn?

If not, she’d let it go. She said, It’s up to you.

Pause. Thinking: Sahana did look so cool, descending her dark green bike. Thinking: cars were bad and ugly and indirectly killing the coral reefs. Thinking: could minimize carbon footprint? Saying: Okay, yes. I would like to bike.

To my shock Sahana was successful. When she stopped pushing, the bike and I rolled along. The ground did not bitch-slap my face. My legs did not fly from the pedals in what old boyfriend had described as my “survival reflex.” Instead the pedals kept on circling, as did my feet, as I made loop after loop around the Green. Sahana jogged alongside me, yelling, You’re doing it! You’re biking! Young children and their mothers whooped and cheered while Sahana shouted, That’s my girlfriend! She’s biking!

Immediately I bought a bike. My bike was yellow and attractively European. The handles were soft in my hands. Now, I understood. Many things were possible. At first I didn’t admit it. I hated being wrong. But eventually I said, You were right. I said, Thank you.

Morning after morning I searched up places which had previously seemed extremely far. Then I biked to them. Did you know you can bike to: the bright murals on the Winchester Canal trail? the taco trucks on Long Wharf? a bird preserve in East Haven? the beach? Where it had once taken thirty minutes to reach, it now took hardly eight. I felt like a human car. I detested cars for their abnormally strong frames, but they did move so fast! And on my bike, chest out to the elements, I did too. It was a wonderful, impossible kind of alive.

I’m scared, Sahana! If someone steals my bike my heart would turn to a dark pool. The bike I love is so bright and yellow. Any person or mechanical malfunction might take her from me. Every day I see those metal racks attached to naked bike bodies: a purple bike divorced from its wheels, an orange bike with a hole for a seat. Once I saw a thin, airless wheel delicately propped against a dumpster. Countless times I saw a black U-lock clutching at nothing. Where were the bikes? Unconsciously I began making crying sounds, even as my yellow bike sat beneath me, whisking me away from the metal graveyards.

Every day bikes disappear. Sahana, I love the bike so much, the yellow bike that makes me free. How to love a beautiful thing? How to let go of my attachment to worldly objects, as most ancient religions suggest? How to accept that, even if not stolen, this bike might one day require replacement? I mean, how to accept that the replacement bike might not be yellow?

Babe, you said, Just lock it! That’s all you can do.

The way you shrugged when you said that haunts me. If your dark green bike with the cruelty-free handles disappeared, I think you would shrug that way. I think you would say, Well. And maybe you would buy a bike that was scarlet or purple or gray.

Sahana, in my nightmares I am biking. I look down from the trees and suddenly my yellow bike flashes bone-white. Then the bone-white bike comes apart. Just, slices away. The frame burns to a goop and the wheels roll off in opposite directions. The chain flatlines. Only the soft handlebars remain, and together we sink into flame.

When I wake the handlebars are gone. You breathe in and out, your palm looped across my waist. My eyes pool like leaky life rafts. In the dark I sob quietly. Thinking: Stupid nightmare! Thinking: losing bike ? humanitarian crisis. Thinking: worst case scenario = bike suddenly comes apart? Whatever! Could buy new bike! On new bike, could still bike to beach. Could still look at sky. Thinking: bike can be replaced.

Obviously bike is not alive but also? Recently suspicious that’s a lie. Bike is not exactly dead. Bike responds to me. Bike survived the crash last week, when that silver car drove me into a tree. Only the basket fell off. But your cool blue snapback flew away, slivered dark with blood.

I was not a human car. In the ER, I asked for my yellow bike. The doctor ignored me. He poked me over and over, failing to get a vein for the IV. Did I know what year it was? Yes, I said. Did he know where my bike was? He kept stabbing me. Sahana, you spoke up, you said the bike was in the Zipcar. I exhaled. I could finally breathe. The doctor got a vein and the IV ran bloodlessly. I thought: Sahana, yellow bike, coral reefs. The doctor asked again: Did I know what year it was? This time I said, Yes, it’s 2016. I said, 2016 is the fucking worst.

You laughed then. That’s how I knew I wasn’t dying. The doctor confirmed this. Then he asked: Did I want to call any family, a parent, maybe? My pain then was sharp and sudden and blue. I shook my head no. And you touched my hand. Just, gently. That’s when I imagined my insides returning to their normal places. I imagined my white blood cells as little cartoon circles, lifting up needles, stitching up my face.

Sahana, you hot-glued the basket back on after we got home. I mean, you drove me home from the ER and in the Zipcar you saw the stupid depressed look on my face and you said: This is my fault. You didn’t shrug and you also wore a stupid depressed look on your face. You said I could’ve died. You said you were buying us both helmets. I shrugged. I said I love you.

After that you cried weirdly hard and I had to drive the rest of the way. Driving the Zipcar, thinking: this car is killing the coral reefs the earth requires to survive. But also thinking: so lucky to be alive. Can still bike to beach. Can still think about coral reefs. Because of near death experience, feeling of luck, etc, saying: Sahana, you’re why I can bike!

You thought I was blaming you. No! Besides, accident is whatever. Only worry is basket (here, you bring up hot-glue gun). Face scar will heal, probably! And I can still bike. I mean, bike is still yellow. I mean, who cares about face scar?

Because Sahana, do you remember the Green? I was biking! Without training wheels! And I felt— I felt something new. The speed, the possibility, that was because of you. Because I was looking up and noticing the green yellow orange red of falling leaves. Thinking: I would like to bike until all my hair goes white and all my white hair falls out. Thinking: I would like to fly past pedestrians until green veins poke through my skin and all my red cartoon circles retire from carrying oxygen. Thinking: Sahana, I would like to bike for the rest of my days, head tilted to the trees, you jogging beside me, just this way.

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Nitya Rayapati grew up in Austin. She lives in New Haven, Connecticut, where she researches the history of medicine in the slave trade. Nitya is a 2021 Periplus Collect fellow and loves birds, hiking, and writing short stories.