Blue Summer and Green Bicycle
A cloudless sunny morning hits my eyes through my closed blinds, flowing through my windows and into my soul, flooding nostalgia into my system. Like a projector to the past, flickering and churning with a roll of film to years gone by. Phantom images hidden behind an iridescent veil like a hologram inside of a bubble hit the inside of my eyelids.
That transitionary heat when the spring months start to feel like summer. The bud of your heart, cast in lethargy, blossoming with the presence of solar and banishing away the boredom. Welcoming a thirst for adventure, romance, and mischief. Free from its watery bonds, dust and pollen circulate the air, stinging your eyes and nose. The hair underneath your baseball cap damp with sweat as the metal bat, glove, and sunflower seeds jostle around in your backpack.
A text message breaches the group chat about a Charmander being spotted at the park, and in record time a perfect stream of clicking gears, turning chains, and rubber hitting pavement cascade as fleets of 8th-grade Cadillacs go blazing off into town. Helmets hit lawns as soon as parents turn away because the air needs to comb your hair, because you feel invincible, because you feel your spirit pushing you toward adventure and danger.
Now the sun hangs low, but it doesn’t want the adventure of the day to stop either. Evenings defy dusk with stretches of twilight as you sit on a curb, mancala beads of condensation pausing, building, before trickling down your Coca-Cola bottle. That’s when you remember you said you’d be back before dinner and that was half an hour ago. Whoops. Nonetheless, you want to stay while a chorus of complaints and jeers erupts from fellow members of the expedition even as they themselves pack up and head their separate ways.
It was only a moment, but the second as I woke up was all I needed to catch a glimpse of you. Your figure shakes and shutters and whilst my smile is solemn and uncertain, yours is bright with confidence. Even though I don’t remember the last time you had any. Maybe it’s only so bright because you appear only amidst Persephone’s warm return? But that’s not entirely true. I see you when I walk in the winter rain. I see you when I bathe in the summer light. I see you amongst the piles of leaves in Autumn, catching and riding the breeze.
It only ever takes that much: a glimpse. How different are we really? How much has actually changed? Every time I feel lost, you find me. As if you’re riding around, aimlessly, eternally in that blue summer on your green bicycle, looking for someone to play with and you bump into me when I need you. You stand there with that foolhardy smile, so ignorant of everything and so full of wonder even as your form trembles because you know what I’ll do. You know we still crave the same things. In that second, in that wrinkle of universal fabric, I reach my hand out to yours and hold onto you.
HOYIC.
📸: Gainax, Prod. I.G.
