These are not stories.

I ride down Broadway towards Times Square. I want to see how empty it is. The city is on lockdown. It doesn’t keep everyone inside.

New York is starting to look like the old New York I came here for. Bums, drug dealers, losers, all roaming the streets. This is their time to shine, to take the city back.

There are some, like me, looking to escape the confines of cushy upper middle class life. I have everything I need, but it’s not good enough. I ride my bike through the barren city because I want to breathe freedom, even if it means risking my life.

These people and me, we’re selfish. We don’t care about the welfare of others. We want to embrace the loneliness and add to the destruction. Some do it by choice, some don’t. We come from different walks of life, but we connect with neurotic, drugged, mentally unfit perspectives. Our paths were all different, but they all led us to this same destination.

The tires on my bike are never filled with enough air, so I have to push harder than I should. The streets are littered with potholes and garbage and pedestrians not looking before stepping into the street and other cyclists riding in the wrong direction. I dodge them and curse them all. Why am I so scared of that damn air pump? I blame it so I can curse my life for making me have to work so hard. Pedaling and getting nowhere. I just wanted to ride through the open roads, not having to stay inside the lines. But it’s too much freedom. I need some order.

I’m not like these people. We’re all assholes, but many of them have real reasons to be assholes. I’m just pissed because I made more decisions in life that didn’t turn out the way I wanted. Maybe they did, too. I don’t know. But I’m out here exploring this post-apocalyptic city by choice, not because I have nowhere else to go. When I get tired of being harassed, I’ll just pedal back uptown and relax in my girlfriend’s posh apartment.

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