To my dear friend Thief:
You know who you are; you stole the rear tire off my bicycle.
I don’t hate you,
I fear for your welfare.
You obviously have been hanging around the wrong crowd. What would possess you to steal from your fellow man? Daddy didn’t give attention? Mommy didn’t care? Deviancy is a learned attribute; I suppose that unlike you, I am blessed to have been raised surrounded by honourable individuals who love me.
I don’t hate you,
I pity you.
You feel you can have your way with the world; whatever pleases you, you shall have. However, you don’t realise that one day your actions will come back and bite you in the crotch. And I am certain, on that day; the gods will be smiling down upon me. What goes around comes around.
I don’t hate you,
I envy you.
We live in a civilisation; hence, one must be civilised. Most of us are shamed into following Canadian mores, due to years of conditioning. Yet somehow, you have the power to buck these expectations put upon us. You truly live outside of society. I, myself, have tried to do the same: I’ve dyed my hair purple. I’ve drunk alcohol whilst underage. I’ve danced on a beach for 3 days straight in Goa. I’ve done some experimenting with members of the same sex. But through it all, I’ve fallen back into the social straightjacket that consists of today’s moral obligations. I wish I could be a vagabond like you, who sticks their middle finger in the eye of the community-at-large.
I don’t hate you,
I am confused by your motives.
Surely you have experienced my similar sentiments of despondency – loss, anger, and malaise – when you had your own bike wheel stolen. I assume you have been a victim of property crime; why else would you have stolen from me other than to replace what you, yourself, had lost? If it were merely to use it as a trophy, or to sell it on Craigslist™, then frankly, my friend, you are another kind of evil.
I don’t hate you,
I question your actions.
By stealing my bike tire, you have rendered my sole mode of transportation useless. How am I to get to work and earn a living? How am I to get to the supermarket and buy food to nourrish my body? How am I to get to school and better myself? How am I to get to The Arts Café in Mile End and grab a coffee with friends? On foot? Too far. The bus? Too infrequent. The métro? Too inconvenient.
I don’t hate you,
I thank you.
Even if I installed a new bicycle wheel myself, I am looking at costs of at least $100. And with the time it takes in labour, I don’t think this project would ever be accomplished.
Thief, I thank you because had I not been faced with this transportation dilemma, I would not have thought about going to www.bixi.com, clicking on « Abonnez-vous », and filling out the registration form in order to receive a bixi key 2 days later.
I’m mobile again and I’m loving it.
Rot in hell.
Love,
Émile Thomas.
