15 June 09 AM

Some bastard - some UTTER bastard - has got my bike. I don't know what happened, it was there one minute and gone the next, and I'd never even considered it going, not without my say so. I guess I just took it for granted, that I'd be able to walk past the scooter place past Farringdon station, and each morning see my little cream Vespa sat bathing in the morning sun. I'd figured out how I was going to scuttle aside the required £850, daydreamed about taking my CBT and joining the wheeled ranks which passed me in swarms to my right hand side every morning. I'd built a whole life around that bike; figured out how I was going to manage in the rain, the way I'd have to balance my haul from Sainsbury's between my legs as I pootled on back to my flat to cook. I''d even considered what to do if I ended up going for after-work drinks, where I'd lock my beautiful bike, how I'd wake up hungover and terrified that anything should have happened to it in my careless absence. I'd thought of having you on the back, the weight of your helmeted head on my shoulder, weaving through the city to some play or gallery with your fingers tight against my hips, the sunshine peeking under the rim of my helmet's visor. I'd dreamt of long trips out to the South Downs, to Whitstable, even back to the Cotswolds, just the two of us, negating the terrible taint that contact with other people from outside our little world would have on a decadent weekend. I'd thought of how I could escape; from work, from the madding crowds, from an argument with you. How my gallant charger would whisk me away through the sleet as the tears streaked my face until I could reach the warm sanctuary of home and warmth and a phonecall relaying kind words of reconciliation.

But it was not to be.

Maybe this is for the best – for an alternative scenario plays itself out in my head; that I love my bike so much that I go everywhere on it. I become on of those waddling species, unable to walk due to lack of exercise. That because of my unerring diligence towards my beloved charger, I stop frequenting the pub and become one of those dreadful bores who thinks too much and relaxes too little, that my wits – unchallenged – become dulled and wither, and my social life wanes. That essentially I become a fat, dull, bore, until one day I wobble my way in front of a speeding cement mixer. I wonder which fate shall befall the new owner. And yet, the bastard has my bike, but not my dreams.