I'd seen him each day for months now, as I sat on the front porch and peeked over my library book as he went by. He was always steadily pedaling that red bike. I could always tell when he was coming, even while my eyes gazed at the pages. As he turns the corner, the quiet squeak of the brakes and the click-click of the chain catching in the teeth.
I heard him coming again, and tossed aside To Kill A Mockingbird, running down the steps to meet him.
"Hey," I stepped in front of the bicycle's path, and the brakes squeaked again quietly as he stopped in front.
"Hello," he said, breathing heavily and pushing up the visor of his helmet.
"I just wondered," I said, looking at the bracelets on my wrist, "Where are you going every day?"
He laughed as quietly as his brakes. "Everywhere," I looked up to see him smiling and looking at the street, "and nowhere," He looked up.
"Why always on a bike? Surely you can have someone drive you wherever you need to go," His eyes crinkled and he laughed again.
"I don't have anywhere I need to go. I go just to go. And besides, I wouldn't want to drive anywhere. People are always going around in their cars with their ear-buds and portable DVD players... they don't understand the world enough," He looked at his feet and shuffled them on the ground. "They care about where the world is in relation to them, not where they are in relation to the world," He looked up again. "They care about where they are going, not where they are while they're getting there."
I nodded and backed up onto the sidewalk. The click-click started up again, and it began to fade down the street. "Hey! Wait!" I shouted. He looked back, but didn't stop. "Why do you always come by here?"
"To update my reading list!" He yelled over his shoulder.
I laughed as I picked up my book again. As he turned another corner, I thought I could see him laughing as he pedaled too.
I smiled. "It's not about where you go, it's how you get there," I said to myself, and I turned another page.