A few weeks ago, I got off work early and decided to go for a bike ride. I rode through the city and through this little park along a river. There are lovely curvy stone paths that unfold alongside the river. Now this park has an artificial waterfall about 40 feet from the river bank, and the water flows through little man-made concrete channels back down to the river. The curvy paths daintily cross the small waterways with quaint little concrete overpasses, only since I have been in Moka, the waterfall has been inactive and the waterways have been dry.
On this particular autumn afternoon, there were several pleasant elderly Japanese people in the park, many with canes or walkers. One such woman was walking toward me at a pace that would put us on the concrete overpass at the same time. Let me explain that these overpasses are not much wider than the average person, and they are far too charming to have obtrusive handrails. They are simply walking paths that cross waterways, no guardrails, no barriers.
Now, when I saw the woman approaching the "bridge" and calculated her approximate time of arrival at the narrow walkway to be the same as my estimated time of arrival, I kicked it into high gear. I pedaled like the wind, agilely dodging a cute old man and his dog. Only I wasn't so agile, and, as I approached the overpass, my front bicycle tire swerved off the path, and down went my trusty steed, Chessboard, into the barren manmade waterway. Lucky for me, I have catlike reflexes. I ditched the bike mid air and, unable to change my trajectory, landed on two feet and one hand in the dry cement river basin. It was definitely impressive acrobatics (although the best acrobats would have been able to avoid the situation entirely).
And that my friends, is how I fell off my bike for the first time here in Moka.
And the old woman I was trying to avoid just stared.
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