In the Shadow of Domes

I’d forgotten about that bicycle in Florence. It’s easy to forget little things like that – a rickety bike leaning against the white plaster wall of a chapel, dwarfed beneath the shadow of Brunelleschi’s Dome. But I’ve remembered, now, and it’s one of those things that you don’t forget twice. You can’t. It will stay with me forever.
It was a September night, and in the piazza in front of the Dome, I was trying not to shiver. Later, of course, I would see the Duomo in daylight, but that first time it was hidden by shadows that the streetlamps couldn’t reach, and all I could really see were the long marble steps leading to the cathedral door. Dark-skinned street vendors strolled back and forth across the square, sling-shotting LED-light helicopters into the sky. Ribbons of fluoro pink and orange streaked the night. Their thick Italian accent mingled with the trickling voices from restaurants in nearby streets, and in the background you could hear the twang of an indie band busking just beyond the square.
Sarah, leading the exploration of the area around the Dome, discovered the bicycle. It had a steel frame, with sheets of metal for mudguards and rust on the spokes. A basket, made of wire like a shopping trolley, perched between the handlebars.
‘Wonder who owns it,’ Sarah said.
‘Reckon it’s a guy or a girl?’
She smiled. ‘Don’t know. Hey, let’s write them a message!’
A scrap of paper, thick like cardboard, lay on the cobblestones. I picked it up and found a pen in my bag, one of those cheap blue biros that go dry before the ink runs out. It was difficult to scratch the words onto the paper. We couldn’t stop giggling. The novelty of it, I guess – we were both still in highschool, and this was our first time overseas.
'Hi', we wrote. 'We’re from Australia. You are beautiful, so don’t listen to anyone who tries to put you down, always do what makes you happy. We hope you have the best life ever!'
We’d run out of space on the sheet, so Sarah and I signed our names, and we stuck the corner of the paper scrap into the mesh of the basket, and left.
That’s the end of my story with the bike; I won’t ever see it again. But in my imagination, I see her or him finding the note, staring at it helicopter slingshots scribble colour across the sky. Their story began that night.
I just hope they could read English.