For three long years, El Vrada has kept a secret folded up behind the winter coats, under a dust sheet, next to the Christmas decorations. A secret with a fold-down handle and a little bell he's too embarrassed to ring.
He owns an eScooter. There. It's been said.
He rides it at 5:40am. In the dark. Down the back lanes. Helmet, big collar, sunglasses — at dawn. He's told everyone the gentle whirring noise from the shed is "a dehumidifier." His own mother thinks he took up jogging.
"You don't understand. I've built a whole LIFE around people thinking I walk to the shops. If this gets out, who even AM I?"
Then it arrived. A brown envelope. Official crest. The new law: every personal electric vehicle on the Rock must be enrolled on a government list — and owners must attend, in person, on signing-on day, to be entered onto the record.
El Vrada read the form header — L.G.B.T.Q.e.S.C.T. — once. Then again. Then he sat down on the floor of the hallway and stayed there for some time.
A boring vehicle registry. Make, model, battery size. Twelve quid. You're done in ten minutes.
That he must stand up, in public, in front of a man with a clipboard, and DECLARE himself. Forever. On a LIST.
"They want me to SIGN ON. In FRONT of people. What if I see someone I know? What if it's Carmen from the bakery? She'll tell EVERYONE before I've even parked."
Here is the thing nobody warns you about a long-kept secret: it is never really about the thing itself. It's about the years of hiding it. The little lies that stack up. The exhausting choreography of pretending to be someone slightly different than you are.
El Vrada isn't scared of a registry. He's scared of the moment everyone finds out at once — and realises he's been quietly dodging the question at every barbecue for three years.
"The worst part? Deep down... I LOVE that scooter. I love it. And I'm furious that being made to say it out loud is what's finally going to break me."
*He looks at the scooter. The scooter, having no face, looks supportively back.*
A reveal this big requires an outfit. El Vrada has been standing in front of the mirror since Tuesday. Help him choose the look that says "yes, I own an eScooter, and I'm at peace with it" — pick one:
El Vrada has done the maths. If word gets out that he rides a 250-watt scooter with a wicker basket, the only logical defence is to immediately buy the most enormous, thunderous, masculine motorbike known to man — so that people remember THAT instead. He calls this "rebalancing the brand."
Which beast should he buy to drown out the scooter? Choose his shield:
*panic rises as signing-on day approaches*
Until El Vrada must stand up and be counted (alphabetically, by battery size)
El Vrada arrived forty minutes early, in the biker leathers, sweating gently, having parked the motorbike he hadn't bought yet (he came on the scooter — there was nowhere else to put it).
The man at the desk did not look up. He said: "Make and model?" El Vrada opened his mouth to deliver the speech he'd prepared for three days. The man said: "Lovely. Twelve pounds. Next."
It took ninety seconds. Nobody gasped. Carmen from the bakery was three places back in the queue — registering her own scooter. She gave him a little nod. The nod of one quietly electric soul to another.
"All that. ALL THAT. Four sleepless nights, a leather jacket I can't afford, and a man called Derek didn't even look up. Turns out the only one who had a problem with it... was me."
*El Vrada rides home. He rings the little bell. Once. On purpose.*
The thought cloud, it turned out, was never the government's. The acronym was just paperwork. The cloud was El Vrada's own head — and it had been catastrophising at full volume for three years over something that, said out loud, took ninety seconds and cost twelve quid.
The hiding was the hard part. The hiding was always the hard part. The saying-it was nothing. The saying-it was a relief.
🛴 He still has the scooter.
🏍️ He did not buy the motorbike.
🔔 He rings the bell now. Loudly. To anyone who'll listen.
*The dehumidifier, it is now widely understood, was never a dehumidifier.*