The greatest obstacle to my revolutionary/ criminal plans: "The suspect, one Daniel Carkner, was seen pedaling away from the scene of the crime on his bicycle by some late-night strollers."

Every scheme in my mind's eye ends up in this manner. I throw the brick through the hated window, and as I flee some damned couple spots me and sees my face. I run out of the store, armload of books almost falling, I jump on the bike my partner is holding up and we pedal away as the security guard shakes his fist, and suddenly I plow straight into some fruit stand or something, and..

I need to get over this. I imagine late night flights through downtown, which shortcuts I would take, where police cruisers or chasing vengeful jerks can't follow, which routes would lead me to the safety of a friend's backyard or dark forest path.

I like to think I can escape anything, which of course is absurd. I can probably outpace the fastest runner and those damn crooked bike cops, but some well-placed rock or jab of a stick would end things pretty fast.

Let's not forget those poor bike couriers during some protests lately, the police thought they were bike scouts for the protestors and knocked them right off their bikes and cut their tires.

So, emboldened some time this next summer I will commit intensely appropriate acts and flee, flee into the night, and perhaps history will not know me as some great martyr, because I will never have been caught and tried and executed in front of the brick wall on the side of the Rideau Centre.

"Daniel Carkner," they'll say, "never heard of him. Is he some sort of hockey player, maybe?"

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