When Bike Lane Campaigning Gets Out Of Hand

20260422

Prompt from DailyPrompt.com

Carlos hadn’t meant to become a local councillor. He’d just wanted more bike lanes around the place. Better rubbish collection. Then they talked about shutting down the 22 bus lane, he found himself organising the opposition, one thing led to another and… here he was. About to finish his first term.
It’d been a pleasant shock, when the topic of elections came up and everyone in the room just… assumed he was standing again. And seemed perfectly ok with the concept.
Would they be disappointed if Carlos said he was thinking about stepping down? He hoped not. No reason for people to be disappointed, right? It wasn’t like he’d done much. In fact, looking back, it was one big blur of meetings and paperwork and listening to people complain.
He wasn’t sure what jobs to look at next. Maybe he’d take a few months off. Except, well, employment rates still weren’t great around here, and it wasn’t like his salary was competitive compared to most fields.
Sighing, Carlos adjusted his bike helmet and wondered for the thousandth time what he should do. Go along with everyone’s assumption that he was standing as the incumbent candidate? Or wash his hands of the tedious, unfulfilling mess that local politics had turned out to be and go back to having a proper job?
He absently glanced around before undoing his bike lock. And there was someone loitering nearby, watching him closely. Someone vaguely familiar.
Carlos had always been good at remembering people, an unremarkable talent which turned out to score you major points as a local politician. He was able to smile and say with confidence “Oh, Emilia Ravenknight, yes? From the Southeast Night Council?”
“Th-that’s me!” The young (well, comparatively) vampire beamed, clearly gratified to have been recognised. “But, um, I’m actually here in a, like, personal capacity?”
“Ah. Well. I’m afraid I just got off work, but if you pop in I think Barry’s still-”
“I wanted to talk to you, though! About the elections coming up.”
Carlos blinked. Faced with such anxious earnest enthusiasm he could hardly say anything but “I’m all ears.”
“So, um, everyone at the skate gang - you remember us? From the-”
“Of course! How’s the new site working out?”
“It’s brill.” Emilia lit up. “We weren’t sure at first, but now all the building work’s done it’s amazing, it really is, and we’ve got so many new people coming, and…” She cut herself off, shook her head, and firmly refocused. “And that’s why we want to say thank-you by, um, we were thinking we could maybe shoot you a, a campaign video thing? Aimed at young voters, like.”
She seemed daunted by Carlos’s poleaxed stare. “W-we just… Maude has a bunch of ideas, and she gets really good marks on all her uni stuff, so it’d be a proper video, like. Um. Something to put on your socials? If you want?”
“Are… are you sure?” Carlos managed, helplessly wondering if he was currently being filmed. “You wouldn’t mind?”
“Mind?” Emilia now looked as baffled as him. “We’d love to! We’ve got, like, Maude’s written a whole script where we talk about how the old parking lot we were using to skate was going to get repurposed, and when you found out why we were causing so much trouble you helped us fill out those forms and write a presentation and convinced the council to build a proper skate park!”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say…” Carlos waved this aside. “You folks did the convincing, really, you were so passionate! And once you took that petition around all the schools and such, and proved there was local interest…”
“It wouldn’t have happened without you, though!” Emilia clasped her hands. “So we wanna tell everyone, ‘you should totally vote for Mr Sanchez, because he really cares, and works hard, and if you have an idea to make your neighbourhood better he’s your guy’!”
“Well, I…” Carlos firmly blinked back tears. This was almost certainly a silly sort of thing to get emotional about. He’d make it weird. He put on a warm smile and managed to say, with only a hint of tremble to his voice, “I couldn’t ask for a more ringing endorsement, I really couldn’t. I would love to have a, a grassroots campaign video. If you drop me an email…”
Emilia promised that she would, now bubbling over with excitement and plans and giddily promising it’d be amazing. Honestly, Carlos didn’t care if the video came out blurry or choppy or even just poorly shot; he’d happily put it up on all the official channels. Proudly, even.
As he folded up his bike lock and absently started his commute home, Emilia’s parting words rang in his head. “You’ve made such a difference to us, and we want to give something back.”
Funny. He hadn’t forgotten about the skate park, he just… it’d gone into the metaphorical box labelled “finished projects” and his attention had immediately been swallowed up by the next waiting issue.
Maybe… maybe he should have a look through the files of finished projects. Firstly, to see if there were more grassroots campaign materials waiting to happen. But even if not, he felt it would be good for him to remember things which worked out.
He turned left, onto the new bike lane he’d been part of organising, which had significantly exceeded their usage estimates. Local businesses were very positive about resulting increased foot-traffic. Discussions were underway to continue filling out the awkward cycling network gaps where you had to jostle with cars, helping people be more confident getting around without driving.
Oh, and the buses. They’d almost gotten things set to open a few of the stops which had been shut down.
Carlos gave a wry smile. That was how they got you. Small, tangible, simple seeming things. Then you found yourself mediating a gang war between skaters and primary school teachers.
Someone had to do it, right? And apparently he was the guy for the job.

Prompt was “A character is conflicted on whether to quit their job or not. One day, the right decision becomes clear to them.”