Roald Dahl: The bicycle

"It was my first term and I was walking home alone across the village green after school when suddenly one of the senior twelve-year-old boys came riding full speed down the road on his bicycle about twenty yards away from me. The road was on a hill and the boy was going down the slope, and he flashed by he started backpedalling very quickly so that the free-wheeling mechanism of his bike made a loud whirring sound. At the same time, he took his hands off the handlebars and folded them casually across his chest. I stopped dead and stared after him. How wonderful he was! How swift and brave and graceful in his long trousers with bicycle-clips around them and his scarlet school cap at a jaunty angle on his head! One day I told myself, one glorious day I will have a bike like that and I will wear long trousers with bicycle-clips and my school cap will sit jaunty on my head and I will go whizzing down the hill pedaling backwards with no hands on the handlebars!" -From Boy, The bicycle and the sweet-shop


I wanted to post this passage because I want everyone to remember those moments infinite moments when you were a kid. When you looked at life in pure amazement and adoration, and dreamed about the person you could be.

After reading this story, I remembered again why I loved Roald Dahl so much as a child. His words truly get at a magic and sense of child-like fantasy that takes you back to the days when you were free of the world's pressures, and could look up to the sky for whole minutes and hours in ignorant, wondrous bliss.