My chest, tight. All of the outside air felt like steam. I squinted with one eye as I looked skyward wiping off my sweat. 82 degrees felt like 94. My wife and I were doing our noon walk around the neighborhood, when I spotted it. A crashed scooter on its side by a guardrail. Laid down like a dirt bike that burned out on a sand dune in a Dakar Rally. Abandoned. I chuckled to myself. This little scooter must have been involved in some sudden fiasco, I’m guessing last night.
My imagination started firing, and I thought about various scenarios. Was it stolen? I can see a thin man smoking a long menthol cigarette with wiry, long hair trying to figure out the throttle, as he wobbles out of the parking lot, constantly looking back, finally losing control on a pothole on this very street. He stumbles to his feet, running away, looking back one more time. Or maybe a hip chick wearing a cheetah print tank and white shades that ordered the wrong beer. The one with the high ABV. She turns onto the street, and something’s just not right. First, her fingers feel numb, and then her whole body feels like spaghetti. No high speed crash. Just a slow, wobbly fall, like a coin spinning right before it drops. She giggles and laughs and gazes at stars on her back until her UBER arrives.
Better yet, as I talked to the neighbor nearby, maybe it was all staged. An inside job. Crashed it for the money. And lit it on fire as he walked away into the night.
