Start with a bike. Tall and blue, a little rickety, a rental bike outside of a boutique on the Ruè Michael. Your father is the only one with you, and he's using the failing boutique wifi to send your mother your itinerary for the day. “You only get cell service in the hotel and you're in a whole other country?” Your father hems and haws at the plans, and you know the odds of switching things up are as good as meeting Leonardo Da Vinci in the winding hallways of the Louvre. You snap a few pictures of the stunning fountain against the largest building on the street. The Les Misérables soundtrack is playing through your headphones.
The street outside Notre Dame is a massive cluster of cobblestones, grey cars, and screaming people. Tourists clamor for a picture and Parisians get into fights outside their cars. The train station is a half mile walk north, and then a 5 minute ride to the Catacombs. That's the plan, that's why you wore a skirt today. “We're never going to get the chance to bike down the streets of France, it's only a two mile bike ride.” He's in love with the idea of adventure, and so are you. You both love to push the limits, he suggested biking to the catacombs, you giddily agreed to climbing all 800 steps to the top of the Eiffel Tower.
That bike, something seemed off about it when you picked it up, but the brakes worked fine and when you pedaled it went and it was a little tall but it had a wire basket and it was baby blue. Your fathers was grey and sturdy. He punched the coordinates into his phone and used the struggling Internet to get the route you would take. “It's kind of weird to think that we're already biking over the catacombs?” You thought, turning around before pushing the bike into the street.
You're in the middle of the street now, you're almost too short for the bike. Standing in the bike lane at the red light, getting ready to push off the ground when you hear it, the metallic snap of something breaking off the bike. The chain of the bike is glaring up at you like the steel teeth of a skull. The light changes and the cars roar to life behind you. You're pedaling and pedaling but the bike won't move and the cars are accelerating and you hear screaming and car horns but your father was ahead of you and you're stuck and you hear the car coming closer-and then you feel a grasp on your arm and the bike, and you're being thrown on to the sidewalk.
He's thrown his bike down and is barreling towards you, yelling. “I'm sorry I didn't hear you are you ok is anything wrong?” The French woman who pulled you over is laughing, and grabbed the chain from the curb of the street. You walked over to return the faulty bike, and your father is pulling up directions to the train station. “Why? This one is green!” You say, pulling the new bike from the rack, your father grins and you push off into the street, two miles away from skeletons when you almost became one in the middle of the Rué Michael. After all, you are your father's daughter.
