F-0032 What was stuck on the bicycle parked next to his as a joke

(Said to be transcribed from a recording. Remarks from the questioning side are shown with a —. Personal names were withheld when the record was made.)

—May we start with your friend?

Same school. Same class, too. He worked a night-shift job — he’d park at that bicycle lot in the evening, take the train out to work, come back in the morning, and ride home from there. His life ran backwards, you know. At the hour everyone else is parking, he’s the only one pulling his bike out.

—The bicycle lot — when did that first come up?

Last autumn. At first it was bragging. That place packs so tight in the morning the handlebars and baskets all tangle up, but mine, he said, mine slides right out. Lucky, right? — that’s what he said, and that’s what I said back.

After a while, what the messages said started to change. No — the tone stayed a joke. It’s kind of like it keeps emptying out around me, he said. Photos came too. And really, just his one bicycle left, with both sides gaping open. On a full day, mind you.

—There is talk that he switched rows.

He did, once. From the row at one end to the opposite end. A few days later it had emptied out into the same shape again, he said. Around the new spot. By then, apparently, a way of putting it had already gotten around among the users — better not to park over there, something like that. Who started it, he said he didn’t know either.

—How you came to park next to him.

He asked me. Half as a joke. Hey, try parking next to mine, would you. I think he wanted to see whether it would really empty out. And honestly, I wanted to see it too. I’d seen it in the photos, which made it worse. It was January, right after school started. I’m not a subscriber, so strictly it’s not allowed, but for three days only, I parked next to his.

—During the three days, did anything happen?

Two days, nothing. Park in the morning, pull it out in the evening, that’s all. On the third day he said, might as well leave it overnight too, so I left it lined up with his and went home by train. When I went the next morning, my bicycle — only mine — had a sticker on it. The yellow kind. A removal warning, the one that says long-term abandonment, move it by such-and-such a date. One night. There’s no such thing as abandonment in one night, is there.

His had nothing on it. And his is the one that’s been sitting there the whole time.

—You checked with the management company.

I called. And they said, we do not issue warnings in that format. It looks proper, you know. Proper — or, like the real thing. But it isn’t the company’s. So I asked, then who put it there, and their side too, it ended at, we are unable to say.

I quit that day. I said three days, but to be exact, it was two days and one night.

—And since then, that bicycle lot?

Haven’t been. The street in front of it — I probably don’t take that either. Not that I’m doing it on purpose, but I notice I’ve gone to the station some other way.

From him, a while after that, the messages about the empty space stopped coming. The ordinary messages started spacing out too, and the last I heard was that the night shifts had turned into pretty much his main line of work. I haven’t seen him at school. The messages — they do show as read, you know. So I figure he’s doing fine.

—The sticker — what did you do with it?

I still have it. Peeled it off, put it in an envelope, it’s in my room. I should just throw it out, but putting it in the trash — it bothers me somehow. Even what kind of trash it would count as, under the ward’s sorting rules — I don’t want to think about that either. Sorry. Strange thing to be saying.