His Unwilling Muse

Chapter 2: Second Run-in

"Watch out!"

The words reap out of my throat just before I turn the front wheel of my bike into a sharp left. I squeeze the hand brakes, which causes the bike and me to quake first into a short left and then a right. I fight to keep my balance, but there's no point. With a loud thud my bike and I land in the grass, just shy of the asphalt.

And yet the oblivious high-schooler doesn't even peak from the phone nestled in her hands. She only continues to walk right past me.

"Watch where you're going!" I shout after her, but all she does is turn to me with an arched eyebrow and then lowers her eyes back to her phone.

"Are you okay?" A man in his mid-thirties rushes over to me before I can give into the urge to throw something at the impudent high-schooler.

"I'm fine."

Together with the man's help I untangle my feet and stand back up. While the man continues to hold onto my bike, I skim over the brown and green patches of dirt and grass now decorating my legs and elbows. I rotate both my ankles and wrists, and they all pivot without any popping sounds or any throbbing pain.

"Thank you." I straighten back up and take the bike from the stranger.

"No problem. But are you sure you're going to be okay?"

"Don't worry. It's just a few scrapes. I've had much worse."

"If you say so." With a polite nod he then continues down the promenade, however, not before throwing me one last worried glance.

I, on the other hand, guide the bike to a nearby empty bench and lean it against it. I crouch down and turn the pedals to make sure the bike still works without a hitch.

Just as I'm about to stand up, a cringingly familiar symphony floods my ears. This finally alerts me to the fact that I don't have my trusty headphones guarding my ears anymore.

Instead of looking for the missing protection, I find myself glancing across the promenade, to the spot where the melody is coming from. On the same spot as five days ago stands the same graceful street performer. I haven't seen him ever since that one Wednesday morning, despite riding along the same route every morning. It made me guess that this is only one of the many spots where he performs.

For a moment I can't tear my eyes off him. I have almost forgotten how good-looking he is, and how fluid his strokes with the bow are. All of that is ruined the moment I open my ears to the melody he is still playing.

I roll my eyes when I recognize the prelude of Bach's overused Suite No.1. At least the last time he played a classical piece I wasn't able to recognize.

For a second I feel like the violinist knows how much I hate classical music, and has therefore, decided to play this worn-out melody just to make me suffer.

The strange spell is broken the moment a couple stops in the middle of the promenade and obscures my vision of him. I finally note the group that has formed in a semi-circle around him. Today, however, the crowd is noticeably smaller. I guess I'm not the only one tired of this melody.

With a shake of my head I swipe the violinist out of my mind, and turn back around. Three feet away from the bench, exactly on the spot where I landed in the grass, now lie my phone and the white headphones attached to it.

I hurry over to them and pick them up before anyone could get the idea to steal them. Luckily, neither the screen nor the headphones seem broken. Still, I move back to the stone bench and sit down. Before anything else, I need to make sure that the phone is still working.