I finished nannying at noon today. I wouldn't have usually worked today at all, but the parents needed some extra hours of help, and I didn't have anything else going on, so I figured I could help. It felt good to leave, though. I got on my poor old bike, thinking once again that I need to find my helmet in storage at home, and headed towards Davis Square, where I planned to buy a new headlight for my bike.
I like biking. By the time I had passed Alewife I was warm despite the chill of the day. I leaned into the curves around the park and crossed the street-that-isn't-really-a-street without stopping at the stop sign. I swooped down the miniature slope and pushed up the tiny hill right before Mass Ave. I saw the drainage gutter on the edge of the path too late to avoid it. My back wheel hit the indentation in the pavement and slipped right out from under me, dead leaves swishing as I slid backwards down the embankment. My head hit the ground as the bike flipped over me, and everything went dark.
A splitting headache pulled me back to consciousness. Groaning, I blinked at the sudden light of the white afternoon sky. The bike was still on top of me, back wheel still spinning just above my face. I pushed it aside and tried to sit up, but the world spun and I quickly laid myself back down. When I opened my eyes again, I cried out in surprise at seeing a little face peering quizzically into mine. A tiny woman was hunched over me, staring down in amusement, and I hadn't heard her approach or crunch any leaves... Her nose was so close to mine I couldn't move without pushing her out of the way, so I stared wide-eyed as she smiled and brushed my forehead with a pair of wrinkled hands. Suddenly I wasn't dizzy any longer. The little old lady turned quite abruptly and shuffled away, moving through the autumn debris with nary a sound. I sat up and called out to her, but she was moving at a brisk pace, already several yards away, and didn't seem to hear. And anyway, I was stunned into silence by the sight that greeted my eyes. Tiny people bustled all around me, hip height and bundled against the cold. They made no sound, though it looked as if a few of them were holding conversations with each other. I sat there dumbfounded, up to my waist in golden leaves, staring at the streams of faerie people suddenly in my world.
"Hey, are you okay?" A voice pulled me out of my amazement and I saw a full-sized person picking her way down the embankment. She reached a hand out to me. "It looks like you took a bad spill. No helmet?"
I shook my head. I looked around. The little people took no notice of us except to flow around us on their way.
"I...I...I think I slipped," I muttered and put a hand to my head. The headache was gone. The faerie were still there.
It is evening now and I can still see them everywhere. They don't acknowledge me. They don't make a sound. I wonder what jostled loose in my brain when I fell.
Tomorrow I'm buying myself a helmet.
