"Bicycle Rider"

 

The other day, a man rode past our house on a bicycle--not an unusual occurrence, except that he was shouting to himself, and waving his hands all around as if trying to shoo away insects. 

This is what I imagine: The man is a mad conductor who views every object in sight as an instrument in his personal orchestra, whose stage--the world--is so large that he needs to travel it on a bicycle to make sure that all the players can see him. "Horns!" he shouts, and car horns blow from a nearby intersection. "Strings!" he yells, and the electrical cables overhead hum lower than a double bass. He loses himself in the music until the song ends in a final tympanic crash that leaves his bicycle a heap of crumpled metallic elements in the middle of the street.