three dreams

Last night I dreamed that Dad showed up with a surprise bike for me. The night before I dreamed I was biking down the main street here with my breaks failing, but there isn't much more of a story there. I avoided the traffic and got stopped and woke up shortly after.

Last night, however, you and Dad had arrived in the city, but hadn't told me you were here. I knew because you were leaving tokens of your arrival all over campus. The most impressive was Dad's old red road bike (Though not the one that went missing, this one still sits in the barn at home. For the purposes of this dream its sitting in the hallway at school with me leaning over it). The rear tire needed attention, some air, new treads and to be reattached to the frame. It seemed to be held on by strategically lazy cobwebs. There was a rear rack, but it hung to one side apparently by the weight of the rust. The handle bars were bent down, but the looked like they could be bent back up if one was patient and careful.

The night before I had dreamed of a bike shed in the backyard of my big city house.

what do you think, Bird? you said to me in my dream from last night, which was startling because you hadn't been standing there moments before.

I stood sheepishly there because I was embarrassed to have been startled into breaking the handle bars off in my hand.

it's great, i said honestly because I knew you knew I needed a new bike (although in my dream life I knew I hadn't told you and I knew that you had read about it here and I knew you were here to surprise me.) I also knew that it could be fixed up, regardless of how many parts came off in my hand.

Dad was behind you, smirking like he was hiding something. He was.

Behind him was a chopper-like pedal-bike. Beefy and low to the ground with a bucket seat and what looked like a cup holder on the roll bar which turned out not be either but merely the way the light was hitting wall behind. He loved it. I also loved it, but he loved it more. At least I think he did. I was even more sure that he did after I told him I had already picked up a replacement bike because he acted as if he already knew that and had already decided that he was going to keep it for himself.

I was even more sure after I took a walk around it. His vanity plates said DADSRIDE.

In dreams chopper-like pedal-bikes have vanity plates.