I've inherited another bicycle. a cast-off found in my boyfriend's garage: a one-speed from sears of a late-sixties vintage. the bike is kind of ailing and clearly too small for me, more for someone about 5'2", but my own bike is flat-tired at the moment so I've been riding this one around. it makes my knees hurt if I ride too far, but I just use it to ride to the train in the morning. since the bike would be a poor choice for thievery, I lock it on the street and don't think twice about whether it will be stolen. it does cross my mind what might end up overnight in the basket attached to the handlebars. an empty container will end up containing something. it seems to be a rule. the first deposit: two bananas in a plastic bag. the second, shortly after: a rubber glove. I like this perverse combination, and frankly I'm afraid to touch the rubber glove, so they remain. I'm curious to see what else will join them.
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when I was about ten, maybe, I was afraid to sleep with my hands outside the blankets at night, particularly with the palms up and hands open. I was sure that demons would leave things in my hands as I slept. terrifying, weird things. also at this time I was deeply afraid of becoming possessed by the devil, and convinced of imminent non-lethal electrocutions performed by god. as a kid raised without much religion, with vague concepts of reincarnation and zen enlightenment impressed upon me far more than anything from christianity, the idea of demonic spirits had no prescribed place to reside with me, and I didn't quite know what to think about god, so my imagination ran in the direction of wild doom. no help in matters was the hot t.v. topic of my childhood: satanic possession and devil worshipping teenagers. any flash of these subjects that I could catch, on the ever-thrilling unsolved mysteries or on geraldo perhaps, just fed the demon fever. when geraldo went to open al capone's vault, it seemed a given there'd be demons in there too, old bones strewn around from rituals, no doubt.
the tomb of a dead gangster; the vulnerable, creepy soul; my open hand while sleeping: all of these vessels to hold the terrifying unknown.
I can laugh all I want at the theories of the early modern period, when it was all shape-shifting familiars and spontaneous generation and a cosmos made of cheese, but my imagination is at least as full of the supernormal.