Monday 8 April 2019

The Red Bike

The Red Bike

Bam! I see it again. The red bike with the basket, just in front of me. I reach out to touch it, my fingertips centimetres away, when I fall in to the bottomless pit of darkness.

I feel something brush past my face and open my eyes to find myself lying, submerged in grass, in the field behind my house. I pick myself up and look at my watch 12:01  just as I expected.

It happens every four hours- the bike -the blackouts. I walk back to the house and, anticipating the next blackout at four, decide to do my chores now. I pick up the tin bucket and head outside passing the hallway. I stop to look at the photos of my family. The ones when we were all here. I pick apples and pears, feed the chickens and milk the cows.

It took longer than I expected and four ‘o clock came. The bike there as usual, except further away and this time its tyres are muddy. There was something else there to, a dark shape like a…. Then everything goes dark.

My mother gets home from her work tired. The dark circles under her eyes more noticeable than this morning. We eat dinner in silence and I go to bed at seven ‘thirty. I look at the photos on the wall in my bedroom of our whole family at the beach. It must have been taken years ago, when my father was still here. He disappeared four years ago, when the blackouts began. I’ve looked at this photo a million times, but this time I notice something different, something in the background…. There it is again the red bike, closer this time, but something is not right, someone is on the bike, no it can’t be…. Darkness.

The dew drops glisten in the morning light and everything is quiet and still. My mother has already left for work, so I go outside to get the mail. Something is there leaning against the house. The red bike. I check my watch the time reads eight ‘o’ one. I wait for the blackout to begin, but it doesn’t. I look up to find someone standing next to the bike. Someone tall, with dark hair. Someone who I could never forget, my father. A single tear rolls down my cheek, I brush it away and run to him expecting everything to go dark. But when I wrap my arms around him, the time on my watch flicks to eight ‘o’ one.

By Rena

2 comments:

  1. Rena, you are a clever writer as you have put together a dark and exciting piece, which has quite a deep sense of sadness I feel. Your vocabulary is enhanced by the variety of sentence structures you put together. Thanks for a great read which I am going to share with the class I teach! Here's our class blog - perhaps some students from Saint Martins might like to comment on things in our blog. Have a look - http://rakau19.edublogs.org/

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  2. Good Job Rena. I think that you used some very good vocabulary in your story.
    I am from, Ashley School near Rangiora. Here is our blog so you can visit it- https://rakau19.edublogs.org/
    Maisie

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