THEY STOLE MY BYCICLE

Six years ago a friend of mine gave me his bicycle as a gift and he is gone forever. For three years the bike has always served me: I loaded it like a mule to do the shopping, we went a couple of times away and then around this green area, for months she and I, her bike. For months and miles, it was my car. I remember that she was waiting for me on the last sidewalk of the station when he left. When I left for London it was brought with great difficulty to Padua and when I returned from London I went to pick it up from Padua. It was raining heavily that day, rivers of water lined the streets and the Paduans found a girl in the rain who splashed water everywhere and sang the Christmas song “Jingle bells” in the middle of summer. I was very happy to be able to ride a bike. When I arrived at the station, the track for the bike was the last one, outside the station shelter and so I had to forcefully fit the bike onto the wagon and then pull it up, in the midst of a thousand curses on that last wagon before the locomotive. Unlike the one I have at home, this one was called “Little Mermaid” because during the winter rains of a cold and merciless reverse, I always emerged from the waters on her saddle and stayed afloat. I walked around in sub-zero temperatures and warm socks under my pants. Then one day I went to the library, serene as always, and when I go out I haven’t found her. You took away not only a bike of questionable economic value, and of fundamental practical value, but you also took away a dear memory and a piece of my life. The Little Mermaid was the only memory I had of my friend. Thieves assholes!