The Bridge

Raindrops pass through me like sunlight through glass. I can remember a time when I enjoyed the feel of the falling rain as it streamed down my face. The coolness was refreshing on hot summer days. What I would give to feel the rain again.

I have been at this place forever, or so it seems. Everything around me has changed, giving the only indication that time still marches on. The grand oaks and majestic maples that line the river's banks are taller, their branches thicker and more full of foliage than when I first arrived.

The very bridge that I stand upon has also changed. Its once stable, sturdy, smooth, brown, oak planks are now gray and splintered. Some of the rotting boards have fallen away altogether revealing gaping holes that lie in wait for some unsuspecting prey to stumble upon them to be sent falling with limbs flailing to the icy waters of the swiftly flowing river below.

Only, nothing has come here in a very long time. I wish somebody would happen upon this forgotten stretch of dirt road just, if nothing else, so that I know humanity still exists, or to know, perhaps, that in some way, I still exist. But my existence, in whatever form that may be, is complicated, for I am sure I am a ghost.

My feet rest upon splintered planks, but I do not feel their solidness on the soles of my feet. I see trees swaying back and forth in the wind, their leaves slowly changing from vibrant greens to hues of reds, yellows, oranges, and browns, but I do not feel even the stiffest breeze.
No, I cannot say for certain that I am real, but I can say that I am here. I see the things around me and hear the animals, big and small, scurrying and scampering in the thick underbrush. I hear the rushing water run swiftly beneath the bridge, but no matter how much I wish, no matter how much I try, I cannot feel these things.

Nor, as I have discovered, can I leave this place. I want so badly, to travel the short distance down the dirt road that connects this place to my mother's house, a mere mile from here.

Does my mother still live there after all this time?

Not long ago I heard the wailing siren of an ambulance coming from that direction. She must still be there. I think that is why I am here.
My poor mother. I was the only thing she had left in this world after my father went to fight the Germans, only to never return. She told me that almost every day. Now I too have been taken from her. If only I could tell her what happened to me. Does she even know what happened? Does she think I ran away?

I remember her face as distinctly as if I had seen it yesterday. I thought I saw it one time a long while ago, but it could not have been her. It looked so much like my mother, but this woman was many years older than she. The woman came to the bridge, back when it was still safe to walk upon, and looked down into the roiling rapids below with wrinkled eyes that were full of pain and grief. Her eyes held so much hurt that it saddened me.

I sobbed, and then the strangest thing happened. Her head snapped around to where I stood, and she looked right at me, or so it seemed, but instead, she looked through me as if searching for the source of a sound she thought she had heard.
I screamed, "Can you hear me?! I'm right here!!"

Her eyes narrowed in concentration, and her head tilted as though listening to some far-off voice, but she did not hear me, this old woman with my mother's eyes. She looked around a while longer, an expression of guarded optimism on her wrinkled face, and then she walked stiffly as if upon pained legs, down the dirt road toward my mother's house. I tried to follow, but after a few steps away from the bridge, my surroundings changed.

A dark strip, as black as pitch, formed on the distant horizon; consuming the light as it rapidly approached. Horrible, agonized screams accompanied the blackness, getting louder as it drew closer. Grotesque figures, perhaps once human, shambled about in the void. Rage and hatred contorted their faces. Their yellowed teeth were broken and jagged. Sores and gaping wounds covered their twisted forms, oozing blood and pus. Slowly they staggered toward me.

Shouts and curses belched forth from their mouths; I felt their hatred. They wanted to drag me back with them, to suffer for eternity just as they suffer. I feared for the old woman's life as she passed through the midst of the approaching mob, but they seemed not to notice her; as she, too, seemed to not notice them.

Their angry eyes kept steady gaze upon me as they advanced ever closer. Terror's tight grip seized me, like a mouse caught in the crushing coils of a python. I could not move. Closer they came; I struggled. The darkness bore down upon me, engulfing, consuming anything it touched. I closed my eyes, and my mind quickly conjured the image of the bridge. I heard the staggering, hurried, steps of the damned, and they were nearly upon me. In my mind, I saw myself standing on the slightly worn planks just as the first of the foul creatures grasped my throat, and suddenly the screaming stopped, like the arm of a record player being removed mid-song. I opened my eyes. I was on the bridge once again. Everything was as it had been before.

I dared a peek back toward where the creatures were coming, but there was nothing there except for the old woman. She was in view only a few seconds more before she disappeared around a bend in the dirt road.

I never tried to leave the bridge again.

That old woman's eyes, so much like my mother's, brought memories flooding back to me. I remember my school friends and the time I broke my arm falling out of the apple tree in our backyard. I remember the important events that stand out in a child's mind: birthdays, holidays, favorite toys, and such. My memories are the only thing that I have left in this world. They are the only thing that lets me know that I was once alive, so bittersweet are these memories. They remind me of what I once was, yet are also a constant intimation of what I will never experience again.

What I remember most vividly is the day I died.

I awoke early that morning before the sun pushed above the eastern horizon. The days prior had been unusually warm for this part of the country. I wanted to get an early start on my chores so that I could avoid working during the hottest part of the day. Also, I wanted to put my new fishing pole, the one I got only a couple of weeks before for my twelfth birthday, to good use. My mom bought that pole for me saying, "You are becoming a young man, David, and every young man should have a good fishing pole."

I rushed out of the house and ran to the barn to start my work, taking a break only long enough to eat some eggs, cooked with the yolks down because it is gross when the yellow liquid runs across my plate and mixes with the other food, some bacon, fried extra crispy, and a piece of toast with butter. After washing it all down with a glass of cold milk, I rushed back outside into the hot and humid morning to finish my chores.
The sun was nearly at its midway point across the sky by the time I finished. Sweat poured down my forehead and stung my eyes. My clothes were drenched, as though I had been caught in a sudden downpour. I ran into the house, a two-story building my dad had painted a pale yellow, peeling off my clothes along the way. I burst into the kitchen through the screen door, letting its tight spring pull it back closed with a slam that startled my mother, and ran through the house, by then dressed only in my underwear, carrying the rest of my clothes in the crook of my elbow. I flew up the stairs, two at a time, with my mother's shout of, "don't run in the house!" hot on my trail.

Once in my room, I peeled off my underwear, and along with the rest of my clothes, piled them in a random corner. I pulled some shorts and a tee shirt from a drawer, grabbed the new fishing pole, which I kept propped up against my headboard, and ran back down the stairs. My mother was waiting for me at the bottom step with her hands on her hips. I asked her if I could go fishing. She tried to conceal a grin as she glanced at the pole in my hand. She asked if I had finished the chores, I told her I did. She made me promise to be back before dark, I said I would. She handed me a sack with a couple of sandwiches inside, probably peanut butter, kissed me on the cheek, and grinned again as she told me to bring back supper. I said I would try and then hurried out the front door and toward the dirt road.

Cars were not uncommon on the road that went past my mother's house, so I walked along the shoulder in the waist-high grass, scattering grasshoppers with each hurried step. Katydids buzzed in the tall poplars. In the distance I heard water rushing, getting louder as I made my way toward the wooden bridge.

Once there, I followed a narrow trail, steep and strewn with loose rocks and dirt, down the embankment, being ever vigilant not to lose my footing and fall off the path into the fast-moving current. Once down, the path, wedged between the deafening rush of the river to the right and the dense encroachment of hardwoods to the left, widened. Sweat poured off me in sheets, soaking my clothes once again, and making them stick uncomfortably to my back, legs, and stomach. I continued down the trail.

Further along, the river slowed and became quieter, the waters calmed after their journey through the rocks. I rushed at a quicker pace until I came across a slow-moving tributary, turned, and followed it upstream into the thickening woods until I arrived at my secret spot; a vast pool so calm the water seemed to be standing still. The clear surface reflected upside-down images of the trees on the opposite bank like an enormous mirror.

A quick scan revealed my sitting place, an old maple log tucked in the shade graciously provided by the canopy of leaves high above my head. I wasted no time rigging my line, baiting my hook, and tossing the sacrificial worm into the smooth water, ruining its pristine surface by sending ripples across its once flat plane.

My early rise that morning, combined with the unusually hot weather took its toll on me, for not long after I nestled onto the soft bank, with my back rested against the fallen maple, I fell asleep.

I awoke sometime later, confused by the angles of the shadows. They seemed wrong, long and reaching, somehow sinister. My neck and back ached, and my head felt like it was stuffed full of cotton. It took a few minutes to regain my bearings, and when I finally pieced the puzzle of my surrounding together my heart stopped beating for the briefest of moments; the sun was setting.

I slept the entire afternoon away, and now there was no way for me to be home before dark. My mother will be worried sick about me, but even worse than that, she will be mad. I jumped up and darted downstream, then came to a sudden halt that shot sharp pains up my stiff legs. They were not yet ready to run so soon after waking. I lumbered back to the side of the pool, slowly walking out the kinks in my thighs, retrieved my nearly forgotten pole, then attempted, successfully, this time, to sprint back to the river.

The sun was soon below the horizon. The ever increasingly visible stars, like a million pinpricks on a back-lit black cloth, reminded of how late I was. I broke my promise to my mother, and there would be severe consequences to pay once I made it home. I ran the entire way back along the trail. Exhaustion set in by the time I reached the small path that led up to the bridge. My ears pounded, the sound of blood ebbed and flowed in them, synchronizing with my rapidly beating heart. The noise was so loud it drowned out the sound of the rapids to my left.

I scrambled up the rock-strewn path toward the dirt road above. The stout wooden bridge was a dark, massive, shape in the night. I threw my pole up the embankment to free my hands for climbing. Once reaching the top, I looked around for it. A few seconds later I spotted it, half on the dirt road and a half on the bridge, and bent to pick it up.

A sudden explosion of pain washed over my body as I suddenly found myself airborne. I landed with a loud crack. The pain vanished as quickly as it came. I tried desperately to move, but could not. The rhythmic idling of a car engine seized my attention. I heard the sound of approaching steps. I thought about how upset my mother was going to be, and about how I was going to miss the first couple weeks of school because I would be stuck in some hospital recovering from my broken bones.

A man bent over me and pressed his fingers against my wrist. A panicked look shone upon his tired face. I could not feel his touch. He looked back toward the direction of the car and shouted that the kid he hit was dead. 'What kid?', I thought to myself. They could not be talking about me. I am alive!

Footsteps echoed loudly on the bridge's surface as another man approached. After a short, muffled conversation they lifted me off the ground. I was going to be taken to the hospital now, or so I thought, but instead, I once again found myself sailing through the air, falling toward the fast-moving water below. I hit the surface with a splash that I heard but did not feel. My body drifted along the surface of the water for a short distance before sinking.

A strong undertow wedged my body beneath a rock. I was trapped for what seemed like an eternity. I could not feel, only hear the water as it rushed by. I watched helplessly for days on end as catfish and crawdads made a meal of my flesh. Alone, angry, afraid, confused, my mind began to wander. I thought about my mother, about home, about everything that I had that is now lost to me. I thought of my father's face, remembered only from the black and white images on the photographs my mother kept on the mantle. I thought of my friends, and of school, but it was when I thought of the bridge that I was suddenly transported there, standing on its sturdy planks, and looking at the water below. I have been here ever since.

Now, I look around all these many years later and am startled at how much my bridge has changed. The rain seems to be letting up. Did I mention how much I used to love the rain? How the feel of its coolness as it ran down my face...A sudden flash of light catches my attention! Two figures step out from a blinding, brilliant doorway at the end of the bridge. I can only see the outline of the advancing shapes. Panic rises as they draw near. The damned has finally found a way to me! My bridge is no longer a haven.

I turn to run, knowing in the back of my mind that I have nowhere to run when I hear a familiar voice. I squint, looking closely at the approaching shapes, and I recognize them. It is my mother. She looks relieved.

"I had a feeling I knew where to find you," she said.

The light suddenly vanishes, leaving no trace that it ever existed. I see now that the other figure is a man dressed in an army uniform. It is my father.

"I am proud of you, son. You stayed here all these years so your mother would know you were near," he said.
I did not realize it until this moment that was exactly what I was doing; it was why I could not leave. They walk over to me, each taking one of my hands into theirs, and we walk toward the end of the bridge.

Something feels different. I can feel. Their hands are warm and soft, the hard planks, once again new, solid under the soles of my shoes. The breeze, still damp from the recent rain, caresses my face. Tears of joy stream from my eyes. Hand in hand, I walk with my parents down the dirt road.

We are going home.