The alley wasn't the kind of place you'd wander into unless you had to. Too narrow, too quiet, the kind that made you aware of your own footsteps. A single lamp flickered above, spilling a pale cone of light onto damp concrete. Beyond that, the dark pressed in, full of small sounds — a cat pawing at trash, the faint buzz of a vending machine around the corner, the distant pulse of traffic.

That's when Merry stopped.

I nearly kept walking, but she tugged at my sleeve. Her gaze had already drifted toward the corner by the wall.

There was a bicycle.

Or what was left of one.

Rust bloomed along the frame, dark and jagged. The seat had split open, its padding curling out like old paper. Weeds climbed the back wheel, stems wrapped around the spokes as if they were pulling it slowly into the ground. The front tire sagged inward, warped out of shape. The whole thing leaned at an angle, not quite fallen, not quite standing.

It looked like it hadn't been touched in years. Not a bicycle anymore — just the shadow of one.

"Guess no one's riding that again," I said. My voice sounded too loud in the stillness, like it didn't belong here.

Merry stepped closer. Her hand hovered above the handlebar for a moment before she let her fingers brush against it, lightly, like it might give way under her touch.

"This was someone's once," she said, almost to herself. "Every day, their hands here. Their weight on the pedals. The sound of wheels turning down these streets."

"Until they left it," I said. "Or forgot about it. Or just stopped needing it."

She didn't answer me. Her eyes stayed on the weeds threading through the spokes, her hair shifting in the breeze that moved down the alley.

"But the bicycle stayed," she murmured at last. "Objects always stay. They remember in silence, even when no one asks them to."

Her words lingered longer than I thought they would, folding into the faint hum of the city.

I looked at it again. Rust flaking along the chain. The wheel glinting faintly in the lamp's glow, trembling when the wind stirred the weeds. For a second, I almost imagined it moving — not rolling down the street, not carrying anyone home. Just turning once, creaking like a breath, enough to remind the world it was still here.

But the sound never came. Only the breeze, carrying with it the faint smell of rain left behind from earlier in the evening, and the far-off rumble of a train sliding across the city.

Merry straightened after a while. She let her hand fall from the handlebar and stepped back to my side.

We didn't speak. The silence pressed close, and yet it didn't feel empty. More like the alley itself was listening.

I glanced once more at the bicycle before we left. The weeds swayed around it, their shadows wavering against the wall. The lamp buzzed faintly, threatening to go out. The bicycle leaned, unmoving, as though it had always been there and always would be.

When we turned back onto the main street, the air shifted. Neon signs flickered above restaurants. Voices spilled from open doors. A car passed, headlights gliding over the asphalt like liquid. The world resumed its rhythm.

But in that narrow strip of night, the bicycle stayed.

Not moving. Not gone.

Just waiting, like the silence after a story you almost remember, but not quite.