Bike Accident with Barbie

Barbie Bike Accident

Photo by Shi Min on Unsplash

This is a writing I did as part of a timed 5-minute exercise in a workshop I led. No edits, except for punctuation.

Barbie, Midge, Pepper, Skipper, Stacey and a host of troll dolls were among the victims of an amazing bike accident earlier today. All of the victims are expected to recover, though a couple of them will forever show the scrapes and dents where their rubber hit the road.

Young Cyndi Cummins of Woodbridge, Virginia, aged 11, was the driver. On that fated Saturday afternoon, just before Christmas, she piled her Barbies and trolls into the basket of her purple Schwinn and headed off to her friend Pam’s house for an afternoon’s Barbie Bachanal, during which Pam’s parents’ rec room wetbar would become a veritable Barbie village.

At first, the ride went as planned. Whizzing down the hill. No traffic. No weather. When, without warning, something – we’ll never know exactly what – went awry.

The Barbies were thrown from the basket and into the bushes and ditches and onto lawns on both sides of the street. The bike skidded across the pavement, as did Miss Cummins. Except for bloody knees and elbows, she was okay. Just dazed and surprised.

There were no witnesses. Which made it all a little sad. Such a spectacular accident deserves an audience.