When I cycled to work this morning, I overtook a Japanese woman in high heels. Her bike was old and clunky, and had a special mirror attached to the handlebars. She seemed to be going extremely slowly, but as soon as I passed her, glancing at her face and resisting the urge to say hello, she seemed to speed up.
The clanking of her bike seemed much more onimous now I couldn’t see her, and I urged my aching muscles to propel me faster. But the terrible noise seemed to stay right behind me, and I sped on along the canal, past inexplicable joggers and mothers with buggies, and locks and bridges and ducks and narrowboats, determined that she wouldn’t catch up with me. I didn’t want to think about what would happen if she caught up with me.
My morning cycle had turned into a Japanese horror film.
Finally I came off the canal in Islington, and headed up towards Upper Street. The incline was punishing, and I was approaching my end. The clanking was getting louder.
At the top of the hill, I turned right, and out of the corner of my eye I could see her reaching the junction. She was dressed in a hippy fashion; her eyes were dark, her face expressionless.
She turned left.
