The Bridge

The ebbing and flowing of the river below has always succeeded, in harmonising with the speeding cars on the bridge above, to clear my mind. There is nothing like walking with your own thoughts along the river's edge, stopping and staring out; searching for answers. Though the questions are never words, but emptiness, the kind of emptiness you feel as a kid when you realised that something you once believed was no longer true, like when you found out that Santa wasn’t real. It’s not that you didn’t know already but that that little possibility, that one percent, has vanished never to return, that little part of your consciousness died. I think that’s why I stare out at the water, hoping that in its unfathomable depth or within the vastness of its oceans, it may return something to me that has been long lost. Like a sailor’s family hoping against hope to see them on the horizon, but they never do.

The cool air stung against my skin, telling me that I am alive, and this ebbed the pain a little. The idea that I wasn’t void of feeling, but possibly only emotion. The gravel crunched beneath my feet as I began to walk, making my way home. I walked up the steep embankment, dimly lit by the sodium street lights on the road above, and began to walk along the path towards the bridge. Cars passed by, running over the bridge's sections like a percussionist playing the same rhythm over and over again: duh-dum, duh-dum, duh-dum. My shadow stretched in front of me leading me home, as the suspension cables broke the scenery around me up into many little slideshows and with each step, with each inch that I moved forward, the pictures changed.

As always in the winter months, the wind never failed to make its presence known, and the rain began to spit. I pulled my hoodie up and covered my wavy hair. I looked up from my feet for a moment and I saw her. Her auburn hair blowing around her hooded top, her hands in the pockets of the leather jacket, that she wore on top of her hoodie. She was tall, maybe about five-foot-ten, and her grey skinny jeans displayed her slender legs perfectly. She just stared out into the river, not searching for anything in particular, just something. She can’t have been more than 18 years old. As she turned to look at me, I saw eyes that were the palest of blues, full of regret and charged with pain. She turned away again and as I passed, she stepped closer to the metal railing. The next few minutes on that bridge are ones I will always wish I could take back. I kept thinking that I should say something, that I should speak to her, but I didn’t want to seem the fool, I didn’t want to be laughed at for reaching out. What could I do? I was probably as broken as she was. What could I say to her?

I arrived at the end of the bridge the orange lighting dimmed, as the street lights stopped, and I turned around before I stepped back into the darkness. She was no longer standing there, she had climbed onto the railings in her heeled boots and was holding onto one of the suspension cables. No longer searching for something among the horizon and flickering lights, she seemed convicted that the missing piece was somewhere other than here. Perhaps at the bottom of the river. I started to run but before I could do anything, it was taken out of my hands.

I stopped and watched as a car had pulled over and another young girl stepped out, flicking her blonde hair out of her face and spoke. I couldn’t hear the words that she said, I could only see the determination and compassion that emanated from her eyes. Cars rushed passed hers and beeped at the fact that she had stopped. Yet she never wavered, she never took her eyes off the girl, only stopped speaking to try to listen to what the girl said. She slowly walked closer to her, and like a flash grabbed her arm and pulled her to the ground. There was a high pitched scream as they clattered to the ground, the potential jumper was rolling, crying, screaming like a child while the driver just held her. She just took the punches from this stranger and held her. Then they wept together on the side of the road, for a good few minutes, almost as if everything around them was on a different time, like their little bubble had frozen and life had just stopped, although in many ways it probably had just started.

I stared at them from the darkness at the end of the bridge and I watched as they talked. They talked and laughed on the ground. Then the driver helped to lift the girl and put her in her car and began to drive away as if they were just the same as every other car on the road. I watched as they passed me and I looked at the floor. I was ashamed that I couldn’t do anything, that I hadn’t done anything because I was scared of rejection. Too scared to be human and that’s all I have ever wanted, to be somebody, that meant something to someone. So often life has given me opportunities to become, and I always back away from them, too concerned with myself to really ever reach out to someone else. Someone who may help me to become who I am and with that thought, I unravel my headphones from around my iPod, place them in my ear and walk back into the darkness.