Aghast, I stood quickly from the table,
dropping the book and accidentally spilling my nearly forgotten espresso all
over myself. Normally, this wouldn't have been much of a problem at all. I
would have just gone to the closet and changed clothes. Today, however, it was
a huge problem because I was wearing a freshly rented tuxedo that I was
prepared to wear to a funeral that very morning.
To make matters even worse, the funeral was that of my own best
friend which I couldn't miss, nor could I show up with a tuxedo that was
covered in espresso. This was all very ironic, of course, considering the fact
that I probably wouldn't have been so upset by the novel as to jump from the
table if the plot hadn't been so similar to my own reality and it's climax so
utterly unacceptable to me.
I quickly changed into a t-shirt and jeans,
tossed the coffee covered tux in the basket of my bike and peddled as fast as I
could without breaking into a torrential sweat-storm to the dry cleaner.
Fingers crossed, I carried my sad but delicious smelling garment inside.
"Excuse me," I said. "How
quickly can you clean this? I have only just spilled espresso all over
it."
The dry cleaner mumbled something as if to
himself and put down the blouse he was holding. "How soon do you need
it?" he asked.
Good question. I looked at my watch. 11:18. The
funeral was at 2!
"As soon as I can have it. In an hour?
I'll pay extra," I said.
The dry cleaner looked at me sideways through
squinted eyes as if summing up just how crazy I was. "I'll have to send it
out to a specialist," he said mysteriously. "If I rush it you can
have it in an hour and a half soonest."
“That’s great,” I said and I left.
There was a cafe across the street so I went
over, bought a coffee and a newspaper and took a booth by the window.
In the paper, I read a story about a man who
killed cats because he claimed that eating their souls would make him live
longer. What a story!
Reaching for my coffee, I found it cold. The
cat-eater story must have distracted me for so long I forgot all about my
coffee.
I looked at my watch. 1:02. This news nearly
made me jump again, but I had learned my lesson from the morning and merely
twitched. The news article was not so long and I was not such a slow reader.
Perhaps time was conspiring against me. Or maybe my watch was just broken.
Either way, I had a slight problem, but I decided to go back to the dry cleaner
first and investigate my watch later.
“Back so soon?” the dry cleaner greeted me.
“It’s been almost two hours,” I said. “My suit
should be done by now.” I emphasized this by holding up my wrist and pointing
to my watch.
“You need to get a new watch,” he said, “but,
it’s good you came. I talked to my specialist and I have some bad news.” At
this, he held up a picture of a man’s hand holding a tiny, doll-sized tuxedo.
It would have been adorable if I wasn’t completely horrified. “Apparently, your
tuxedo doesn’t respond to the cleaning like normal tuxedos do,” continued the
dry cleaner. “We have, of course, contacted the company you rented from and
they will not hold you responsible for the damages,” he was saying, but I
wasn’t listening anymore.
“Apparently your specialist is not very special
at all,” I shot back replying to his earlier comment. With that, I turned and
stormed out of the dry cleaner’s.
I half-ran to where I had locked my bike, but
there was no bike there anymore, just two halves of a lock on the ground, still
hugging the telephone pole like a dead vine still clings to a tree.
Walking around in frustrated circles was all I
could do to keep myself from bashing my head against the pole. I couldn’t
think. I looked at my watch. Still 1:02. Somehow, it had stopped ahead of the
actual time. What time was it really?
“Looking for your bike?” a woman’s voice from
behind. I turned and there, on a stoop, sat a girl with short black hair. She
looked up at me through her black framed glasses and I wondered with
embarrassment how long she had been there watching me.
“No.” I replied. “I just like to walk in
circles. Do you happen to know the time?”
“I don’t, but I do happen to know where your
bike is, or maybe it’s not your bike?”
“What?” I half shouted. “Sorry, I’m just in a
bit of a hurry... I think. You said you know where my bike is?”
“So it is yours then? I’d hate to give a bike
back to the wrong person.”
“It is definitely mine,” I replied.
“Great,” she said. “Ernie took it. He’s the
craziest guy in the neighborhood, but he means well. Sort of. He’ll give your
bike back if you ask, I’m sure of it.” She said this with a smile.
“OK,” I said. “So where can I find this Ernie?
As I said, I’m in a hurry.”
“You probably won’t find him by yourself, but I
can take you there. He’s not so far from here.” She stood from the stoop and
extended her hand. “I’m Daphne, by the way.”
“Arthur,” I said, taking her hand. She had a firm
grip, firmer than mine.
“OK Arthur, ready to go then?”
“Let’s go.”
To my surprise, Daphne took my hand and led me
up one street, down another, around a corner and soon I was completely lost in
a town I thought I knew like the back of my hand.
After twenty minutes, I began to wonder whether
Daphne really knew where we were going or if she was just leading me in circles
to nowhere. Maybe she had broken my bike lock and hidden my bike somewhere just
to trick me. I waved such crazy thoughts from my head and they evaporated like
wisps of smoke.
“We’re here,” said Daphne, snapping me out of
my thoughts. Here appeared to be a large modern farm surrounded by a
new-looking wooden fence. Enclosed within the fence was a small herd of emus.
“You think my bike is here?” I asked.
“Yup. We just have to find Ernie, ‘cause I’m
not sure which one is yours,” Daphne replied.
I had no idea what to say, so I said nothing.
We approached the farm house only to find it
locked up tight. It had the feeling of being completely deserted.
“He’s definitely in there,” said Daphne as she
banged on the door with her fist. “Come on Ernie!” she shouted at the door.
“You gotta give this kid his bike back.”
There was a slight stirring within the farmhouse
that sounded like brick being dragged against brick. Then, the sound of locks
and latches being undone. The door swung open and was immediately filled by the
huge shape of Ernie. He was bald but he wore it well, like he was always meant
to be bald. He had on a brown leather vest, which he didn’t wear as well as his
baldness, and baggy khaki pants.
“What do you want Daphne?” Ernie said, his
voice louder than necessary although he was not shouting.
“I saw you take this guy’s bike and I think you
should give it back,” Daphne replied.
“Oh,” Ernie said. He almost looked ashamed.
“Well I don’t know which one it is anymore. Just take any one.”
I looked at Daphne, not really sure what to
make of the situation. When I looked back at Ernie, all I saw was the door
slamming in my face. Then the sound of locks being locked and latches being
latched.
“His people skills need a little work,” said
Daphne.
“You don’t say,” I replied. I turned back to
the door and banged loudly, shouting: “Hey! Hey get back here, I need that
bike! HEY!”
Nothing.
“It’s OK,” said Daphne. “Your bike is probably
out here anyway.”
Unsure of what else to do, I followed her
around the back of the farmhouse, back to the emus. They seemed to wander
around the pasture in a bit of a daze, some eating curiously, others rolled
around on the ground as if unsure of how to use their legs.
“Which one looks the most like your bike?”
asked Daphne impatiently.
“Uh.” I floundered. “None of them. What do you
mean?”
“Ernie may be crazy, but he’s really smart,”
explained Daphne. “He found some way to turn bikes into emus and has been
stealing bikes all over the neighborhood for his experiments.”
“You’re kidding,” I said. Then the thought
occurred to me that maybe Daphne was the crazy one and Ernie just an emu farmer
tired of her bothering him. A little scene played out in my mind of Daphne
bringing all sorts of people here explaining to them how their bicycles had
magically been turned into emus. What a grand prank it must be.
“You don’t believe me.” said Daphne, brining me
up from my thoughts. “That’s OK, the transformation wears off. That’s what
Ernie’s working on now, he can’t make the change permanent. You’ll believe me
soon enough, but for now, we really don’t have time for you to think about how
crazy I might be.” She pointed at a big clock that was mounted on the side of
the farmhouse. 1:40! Only 20 minutes to make the funeral and all I had was a
handful of batty emus.
“OK,” I conceded. “What’s the plan?”
“Great,” she said. “We each pick an emu-- not
that one--“ she motioned to the one emu still rolling around on it’s back, “and
we ride them to this funeral. Bikes are meant for riding after all, even if
they look like emus.” She said this with a smile and a hint of mischief. I
hadn’t noticed before, but her smile was really very wonderful.
“Let’s do it!”
Wrangling emus was not an especially easy task,
but we managed to climb on top of two of the sturdiest looking emus in the
herd. Steadying myself, I gripped firmly around the emu’s neck and kicked its
flanks with my heel. Off we went, me and Daphne and our two emus, off into the
midday sun to go to my best friend’s funeral.
Epilogue: Somehow, Daphne and I did make it to the funeral, if
only just in time and in less than appropriate clothing. When it was over, I
was surprised to find two bicycles tied to the pole where we had tied our emus.
Neither bike was mine and they were both surrounded by huge piles of feathers.
