The Bicycle

It was blue, the bicycle.
It was my first bicycle, and now I had my freedom.
Aside from not having to walk to school anymore, I could go anywhere I wanted to, anytime I wanted to. Freedom. Magic only surpassed by the learning to read, seeing how little letters would come together and make words that then would make sentences. I loved that so much, and now I had a new love, my bicycle.
That was the one I used when my sister Yvonne and I, she on her own bicycle, decided to go visit our paternal grandparents on their little farm where, in fact, both of us had been born. A long ride, but we were young.
And this was the one I used the night when I "ran away from home" after a bitter fight with my sisters, and without light on the bike and without anything but my shorts and t-shirt, I drove to my maternal grandparents, some thirty-odd kilometers away. It was a matter of pride; I had said I would leave and my sisters had said good riddance and that left me no choice but to go. It was a long, long lonely ride.
And I don't even know what happened to the bike in the end. Did it end up in the basement in a corner or maybe, which I hope, when I outgrew it, it was then given to some younger member of the family.
But it was my first bicycle and I loved it
and it was blue.