knees

3. the small world

Second day

Danny lived on the seemingly suburban part of the town. Almost nobody moved there once in a while so the day his mother told him that they were having a new neighbor, he was in awe—speechless and nothing to say.

Except one thing.

“No more dreadful karaoke nights at 2 am,” he muttered to himself over breakfast as he wrote down some fresh ideas for the newsletter next week. Being an active part of it isn’t all fun and interview-people-with-meaningless-questions.

(A little background about the Emerson family’s neighbors: a group of high school friends that rented the house for the meanwhile until they could find a permanent residence. They find 2 am karaoke sessions very hip and dandy and working for regular hours bad and nasty. But they’re okay enough to be branded as neighbors.)

His mother frowned at him, overhearing his soliloquy, and flicked a wooden spoon at his direction. “Don’t speak of things behind people’s backs, it’s rude.” she said in an impatient tone.

“They said it themselves,” retorted Danny. But once he felt the death glare his mother was giving him, he held his hands up in defeat. “Okay, I’m sorry.”

His mother nodded at his direction and continued stirring whatever she was stirring.

Having normal neighbors would be…different. Nicer. But having neighbors didn’t erase the fact that Danny still had to rush to school and avoid any passing obstacles on its way.

Danny checked his watch and groaned in frustration. “Oh look, I just missed the bus. Again,” he trudged towards his backpack and stuffed his newsletter papers in hastily. He bid his mother goodbye and ran to their garage.

In the corner of the stuffy garage they had was Danny’s most trusted vehicle, his black-framed bicycle. He personally bought it for his 13th birthday and it was the most valuable thing to him at the moment. He pushed it off the curb and fixed his glasses, which he rummaged from his backpack earlier, on his nose bridge just to see the road clearer.

He rode on the bike in a carefully trance and pedaled away. For some reason, Danny was humming the words of It’s a Small World while he was biking on the road. It’s been a while since he last commuted to school (or in this case, a week).

Courtney didn’t like to take the bus almost every time she breathes oxygen the moment she wakes up because of the crowd. As a solution to her claustrophobic problem, she does bike travel instead.

As she mounted her bicycle, Victor, Courtney took a deep breath and tried to shake off the unnerving feeling that she’s been having all morning. She tightened her grip on the handles and kicked the ground hard for her to have an easier first pedals. “Here’s to a new grotesquely optimistic day,” she said to the wind that brushed her face.

She could pedal and pedal towards anywhere she wanted because it’s during those expeditions where she could think and remember everything clearly. Knowing the roads all too well, she might as well steer the bicycle with her eyes shut with a blindfold covering them.

Courtney knew when the bus came and went, knew whether she should turn left or right; the experience was invigorating. As she turned on the corner of the street, just across the local and quite dainty bookstore, an unfamiliar sight jumped on her vision.

She squinted hard to see and she saw a familiar yet queer sight. “Danny?” she called out in caution—in a get-out-of-the-way manner. But it was too late. A collision against the earlier unknown has taken place. Her bicycle was thrown to the other side of the road. And as for Danny’s bicycle, it was tangled on her foot. Talk about unsettling.