The Bicycle That Was Bigger Than Barcelona

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I came over the hill expecting Barcelona and found instead a bicycle large enough to require its own weather.

It stood above the road like some prehistoric machine abandoned by a race of giants. Suspended in its works was a dead pigeon. This seemed unfortunate for the pigeon but advantageous to the bicycle, which thereby acquired the dignity of a monument.

Several people stood looking at it. I joined them because mankind has always been happiest when staring at something nobody understands.

Then I met the engineer.

She was a young woman in a baby-blue shirt, surrounded by drawings of wheels, gears and other objects invented to make simple things complicated. She explained that all her friends were engineers.

“What I need,” she said, “is an art friend.”

I told her I was available, provided there was no examination.

A moment later she was a young man.

I had been traveling long enough to know that when reality alters its arrangements without consulting you, the polite thing is to continue the conversation.

The engineer wanted to build things. I wanted to imagine them. This made us immediately dangerous.

I showed him my cabin.

It was a modest wooden affair in the hills, perfectly adequate for sleeping, eating and regretting one’s decisions. I had decided it needed improvement.

“A tower,” I said.

The engineer drew one.

“Another tower.”

He drew another.

Soon the plans contained battlements, galleries, stone arches and enough fortification to protect us against the entire thirteenth century.

Then the drawings began becoming true.

Scaffolding climbed into the sky. Stone walls rose around the cabin. Adrian appeared and behaved as if this had been the plan all along.

By afternoon we were sitting beneath the new castle walls drinking and laughing.

And that was when the trouble began.

Nothing bad happened.

That was the trouble.

Whenever I find myself among people enjoying my company, a small committee assembles inside my head to investigate the matter. Have you stayed too long? Did you say something foolish? Are they merely being polite?

Social anxiety is a peculiar accountant. It keeps excellent records of debts nobody has asked you to pay.

So while my friends laughed, I imagined them leaving.

While they welcomed me, I prepared myself to be abandoned.

Eventually I wandered away and sat looking down toward Barcelona. The evening turned orange over the sea.

Behind me stood the impossible castle.

Inside it were people who apparently liked having me there.

I considered this suspicious.

But instead of leaving, I went back.

Night came. Lamps appeared in the castle windows. Adrian was still there. The engineer was still talking. Nobody had vanished.

On the hill above us stood the enormous bicycle, black against the sunset, with the dead pigeon still caught in its machinery.

Perhaps that was the lesson.