An original fictional scene about two friends repairing a bicycle.

We had reached the end of the road when my bicycle chain slid off with a dry rattle. It hung beneath the frame in a greasy loop. Carys stopped beside me, but I was already rolling up my sleeves.

“I know how to fix this,” I announced. In my head, it was a job for one firm pull and then we would be moving again.

Carys crouched to look at the back wheel. “We could turn the bicycle upside down,” she suggested.

I looked at the clean handlebars and then at the gritty pavement. Her suggestion seemed like a complicated answer to a small problem. “There’s no need to take over the whole path,” I said.

I gripped the chain and pulled. It did not move. I pulled harder. The chain slipped from my fingers, leaving a black crescent across my palm, and wedged itself more tightly between the wheel and the frame.

Carys did not remind me that I knew how to fix it. She removed the bag from the handlebars and carefully turned the bicycle over. Its wheels revolved slowly in the air. To me, it looked like a machine admitting defeat.

“Move the back wheel the other way,” she said, holding her finger and thumb close together. “Only a little.”

I pushed it too far.

“A little,” she repeated.

This time I copied the distance she had shown me. The chain loosened at once. I stopped pretending not to watch. Carys lifted it on to the smallest cog and asked me to turn a pedal slowly. There was a soft click, and the chain settled into place.

When we set the bicycle upright, I wiped my hands on an old cloth. Carys was already fastening the bag to the handlebars.

“Show me that small movement again,” I said. “In case it happens next time.”

The bicycle had not admitted defeat after all. Upside down, it had simply become the workbench we needed.