If you are friendless enough to frequent Fisher library in the holidays, you have heard her clarion call. Her ceaseless begging.
“Pleaseeeeee pick me up. Pleaaaaassseee”
Unless you have a bat’s hearing, you swivel your head around for a bit. Searching for the miserable. Hoping it is not someone in pain, or a heartbroken teenager.
As you walk toward the coffee cart, the wailing becomes louder, more pronounced. You’re on the right track. Suddenly, you spot her: a lone sentinel with survivor’s guilt. She sits upright, frozen in shock, at the bike racks.
She looks weary, bullied by unsheltered nights of rain and wind. Her brown leather is spotty, her handles grimy. She hears you approach: it’s too late to turn back.
“I’ve been left behind. Pleaaaaassseee. I’ve been forgotten.”
You reassure her in a forceful whisper, quiet enough so onlookers don’t hear, still convinced you’re hallucinating. “Let me help you”, you promise.
Nearing her woven basket, you find some answers. “NOTICE OF INTENTION TO DISPOSE OF UNCOLLECTED GOODS”, reads a sign affixed to the handle. You begin to read the contents, and the bike shudders.
“What are you saying!!!”, she asks in a frenzy.

You realise the bike is illiterate, and as a result, unaware of her fate. She’s in the pound, and her days are numbered.
You never believed in lying to children, coddling them about a magical man who knew their deepest material wish every December. No need to start now; you swallow and tell her the truth.
“If this bicycle is not removed within 14 days — your voice bellows to convey the bold lettering — the University will dispose of the bicycle”.
“Unnecessary repetition of ‘bicycle’” is your first observation as you say it aloud — need we remind you that you have few friends? — but before you can think further, the bike breaks down into hysterical sobs. You don’t have the emotional availability to deal with this right now.
There are 39,000 undergraduates, and more postgraduates. The diffusion of responsibility hits you, and you back away.
So if you don’t collect the bicycle before July 25, who will?