Man on the Blue Moped
There he went by, again, on his blue moped. As always, he wore his red velvet bathrobe and nothing else but his gold glitter helmet and black rimmed goggles.
His moped was blue because that's exactly what he always wanted. It was the only criteria for the purchase. He didn't care for the make or model or top speed or how it started up or slowed down, but it had to be blue and, of course, a moped. A discerning rider knows the difference between a moped and scooter, and the man understood this.
The bathrobe was another matter. He had just undergone a successful bowel resection to treat his severe diverticulitis and was not allowed to lift anything over twenty pounds. The tender incision scars, all four of them, one annoyingly at the very edge of his belly button, drove him up the wall when anything rubbed against them. After trying every type of fabric imaginable, he finally gave into advice from a fellow recipient of the surgery and his most trusted friend and favored chess partner at the community library. "Go in the nude. Just wear a robe when you fetch the mail or walk the dog." The man with the blue moped didn't own a dog, but he owned a moped and liked to go out for rides at least one a day. So after suffering another loss from his wise chess playing friend, he ordered a bathrobe online with two day shipping. Color was unimportant, here. He only chose the red as it was the cheapest by five dollars.
Yes, there he went by. It was a sunny day, early fall, blue skies without a single cloud, and he was riding his blue moped as his red velvet bathrobe fluttered at his hips.
Most of the neighbors knew him, and most liked him, as he was a quiet if not pleasant teacher of mathematics at the local high school up until his retirement just five years past. The Marsten's boy was helping take out the garbage while the man with the blue moped recovered from his bowel resection surgery. The boy even cut the grass, twice. This made the man feel free to play and to ride. This second day as the boy cut the grass, the man started up his beloved moped in the driveway, and the Marsten boy waved. When the man drove off, the boy stood there, still waving, but the mower had stopped. It was a questionable work ethic, but the man with the blue moped couldn’t complain. He was receiving a free service, after all.
He couldn't wait for the leaves to start changing all over. That was the ideal time for a ride, with leaves colored yellow, orange, red, pink even, swirling behind him. The passing scenery made it hard to focus on steering at times. It was just that breathtaking. He thought it'd be nice if everyone could enjoy a ride on such a day with their very own mopeds. Scooters would even suffice, but probably not bikes.
An irritating thought interrupted his internal vision of the impending fall foliage and all it’s wonderous colors. He'd still be in recovery when the leaves began to fall and the colors show, which meant he'd only be able to tolerate the bathrobe on his rides. The air can get quite cold when your zipping by on a blue moped in the midst of an orange pumpkin filled October town. Hopefully by then, he could manage a t-shirt. If not, at the very least, he'd endure some soft cotton blend underpants. He realized, only then, that he could have worn socks at any point during his rides. He'd been barefoot without thought. But his chess playing friend advised him to go nude, and that meant no socks.
In any case, he hadn't worn socks that early fall day as he went by in his blue moped.
The woman driving in her silver SUV on the opposite side of the road noticed his lack of socks. She noticed his lack of other crucial pieces of clothing, too. She noticed this so well, that she neglected to turn her steering wheel the very minimal amount required to make the slight right hand turn in the road.
With the man on the blue moped's mind focused on fall's many promised colors and what sort of attire he might manage to bear during his rides in those first cold weeks and the woman in the SUV's mind on the man's nude figure atop his beloved machine, a fatal, yet some would later call expected, accident occurred.
The man was killed instantly. He no longer had to worry about his annoying incisions or how to safeguard himself from cooler temperatures. His blue moped was also ruined beyond repair, though nobody but himself would have cared to repair it.
When the police questioned the woman in the SUV, she told them that the man drove his blue moped into her lane and she tired her best to avoid him. He was old, unfit to ride such a thing on the road. And one merely had to glance at his attire to see that he was of unsound mind. Forget all his years of teaching high school mathematics and those six, no seven times he beat his impossibly skilled friend at chess. The man was riding a small blue moped in nothing but a bathrobe. And the color of it, come on with the color. The paramedics hesitated to remove his goggles at first. The helmet was another thing. But for some reason, all they could talk about was how he wore nothing but the robe.
The Marsten boy dutifully finished cutting the grass that day, before the man on the blue moped went by. Though he would never tell his mother, the boy was secretly happy. He didn’t like cutting grass, let alone for an old man with an obsession for scooters and perverted dress sense.