His Bicycle Helmet

They had been waiting for the bus too long.
Too long to piss her off and too long for him to tap to his virtue,
patience.
We should ride our bikes, he told her.
It's too far, she said.
But what she meant to say was that she didn't have hope.

A five mile ride to the West would allow them to catch a train or a plane
To Shanghai.
To Paris.
To Buenos Aires.
They still had a million places to go.

They rushed West.
But he got lost on the way.
She looked for him.
Here, was the bed where he was born.
There, was the peluqueria where he got his first haircut.
Follow this road to his school pencil box.

Have you seen this man? became her mantra.
How could he vanish?
How could he leave her behind with the darkness of the familiar?
Her childhood home.
Her elementary school.
The rusty seesaw at the park.

She opened her messenger bag to touch his white bicycle helmet.
He had left it behind.

(a dream i had two days ago about V and i)