A story of a bike

Bianchi

When you are living in a city where there are more biking people then walking people, you’ll find yourself very soon in a desperate need of having a bike.
Bianchi was my third bike. It was white and it had a basket.
I shared Bianchi with my boyfriend. Usually he drove and I sat on a back. Somebody told us that it’s prohibited, but there just weren’t better way to go to classes.
No wonder that we started to love our bike. It cut short all our long distances and it was just 20 euros!
The 20 euros were maybe the reason of all subsequent. The price was low, the seller in a too much hurry to get rid of the beauty.
But we, young and happy, didn’t think twice. The opportunity to get a cheap bike came first. Eventually after living a month in a hilly city where all the roads went only up and down, like crazy snakes, it was a blessing to bike in a flat city.
Bianchi lived in a staircase of our apartment building. It could enjoy nice a tattersail floor next to spectacular stairs.
There was still somebody who didn’t enjoy Bianchi’s stay. A neighbor, who told us that Bianchi actually couldn’t be there. We didn’t listen as always and one day it happened. Bianchi was gone. We got late to school, we were sad and angry, but there weren’t anything to do.
We missed it terribly. We were slower now; it took much more time to reach to a cafeteria for an early lunch. It felt like somebody had cut off our legs. But life went on. We went to university and read books on banks of Arno. We returned from a movie nights as always.
We walked hand in hand on dark streets to home. Till once we encountered our Bianchi- it laid there with other bad-looking bikes. We tried to take it home but it was locked.
We went to police in order to save our Bianchi. But the lady behind the counter thought that it’s quite impossible to get it back, since we didn’t write application that it was stolen in first hand.
“What should we do then?” my boyfriend asked.
The yellow light was blinking behind the lady. She leaned nearer to the hole and advised us to steal it back.
“Just buy a hacksaw from supermarket and take it back,” she said to our amazement.
A little saw cost just one euro. We waited the darkness and set off when the daylight was gone. The journey wasn’t long. Our bike was just a block away from our street. I stood there keeping an eye on passengers while he was doing the job. It took quite a time, but fortunately there weren’t a soul on the streets.
On our way home we were relieved. This time we brought our bike up into our apartment.
Next day we encountered a brutal truth. Somebody had cut its tires.