The Bike Ride

There’s a knock at my door. It’s Christopher Meloni. I open the door and invite him in. He asks, “What you doin’?”

“I was just sitting here writing about wanting to do something.”

Christopher smiles. “Well, that’s why I stopped by. Let’s go ride bikes.”

In one swift move, I close my laptop and slip on my shoes. “Let’s go!”

We ride off down the street, and just as I am about to say how nice it feels outside, Chris says, “Its nice out tonight!”

I look up. “There’s a full moon!”

“Indeed. There it is.”

He is riding just ahead of me. I watch him pedal. We are peddling at the same pace. He must be in the same gear. I look at the houses creeping past us and feel as if I am watching the Showcase Showdown on the Price is Right. I calculate their closest values to the actual retail price, and place my bid.

Chris cheers me on. “That’s a big TV. You can see what those people are watching from the street.”

He rides up into their yard and I follow. We stop right in front of the window and see a whole family sitting in their living room. Their backs facing us. Their eyes glued to a television set.

Watching the people watching the television, Christopher puts his hand on my shoulder and says, “I feel like we are in that Christmas movie... A Christmas Carol... with the ghosts that haunt Ebenezer Scrooge. I’m the ghost who shows you the present, and you are seeing yourself as you are now.” He raises his hands in front of his face and wiggles his fingers. “Ooooooooohh…”

He stops, mid-oooh and freezes.

I hold my breath and jerk my head back to the window expecting to see someone alerted to our presence.

“Wait!” Christopher pauses, holding the moment’s silence captive for a few more seconds. “How can you see yourself in the present, if you are presently with a ghost? They should have called that ghost the ghost of Christmas a few minutes ago.”

I chuckled... relieved to know we were still invisible. I turn my attention back to the window and the people in their living room. “Look!” Christopher leans forward and squints. I rap the window and feel the adrenaline shatter through my veins. We take off laughing into the street. I hear people yelling behind me in the distance but can't make any sense of it due to Christopher’s laughter and my squeaky gears.

We twist and turn through a few back streets, ride through a park, bomb a hill, then duck into a shadow. We stop to catch our breath.

"Hey, Christopher!"

I lift my hands in front of my mouth and wiggle my fingers.

“Ooooooooohhhhhhhhhh!”