I've always been fascinated by bridges. The way they reach out from
terra firma to join hands above the river, or sea, a ribbon of solidity through the air, linking people and places that would otherwise be separated. I'd spent quite a bit of my life travelling, when time and finances permitted, to see and photograph bridges, but this time it was different. This was going to be my last bridge, the bridge that took me from life to death.
My marriage had collapsed around my ears. I thought I'd been doing the right things, working hard to provide the kind of lifestyle I thought my wife wanted, spending most of my life doing the things I thought she wanted, trying my best to be a good husband. Then, just a few days before our tenth wedding anniversary, she told me she wanted a divorce, because she'd found someone she wanted to be with more than me. Completely out of the blue. It was as though a decade of my life, of my best efforts, were being thrown aside without a second thought. I really couldn't believe it, spent the next few weeks walking about in a daze as the edifice of my life, which had proved to be no more substantial than a mirage, was dismantled around me, leaving me, more or less literally, sitting on my suitcase at the roadside. I moved into a small flat, but I couldn't see the point of going on with the charade, leading me to think about where and how I could put myself out of my misery.
It had to be a bridge, of course. The higher the better. So it was that I found myself sitting on the edge of the abyss, early one summer morning, the new day's sun glinting on the water far, far below. The shards of gold seemed to be calling me inexorably towards them, siren-like. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath.
"Why are you sitting there?"
A voice, disembodied to me, with my eyes tight shut, a young, clear, but firm and confident-sounding voice. One which had no difficulty in speaking to an adult on equal terms. How I could know this from one short sentence, I have no idea, but the impression was indelible.
"Are you alright?"
No. Of course I'm not. Why do you think I'm here? They were my thoughts, but I couldn't turn them into words. I managed to shake my head, then stopped, because when I opened my eyes, the drop looked even more vertiginous. I clung tightly to the railing I was sitting on.
"Don't you think you'd be safer if you came back onto the footpath?"
Unimpeachable logic, of course, but what was the point, I thought. Safe for what? I had nothing worth living for. I looked towards the beckoning water again, an infinite, bottomless distance away, or so it seemed.
"Come on, you're making me nervous - I would hate to see you fall."
What was it - the words themselves, and the sentiment they contained, or the catch in the voice which portrayed the sincerity of the emotion? Whichever it was, and despite my desperate mood, I decided I couldn't do anything rash while this still unseen child was standing close by me. I carefully swung my legs back over the metal fencing, and slid down on the inward side, feeling the artificial ground of the bridge deck beneath my feet almost as a surprise, given that I thought I'd left it for the last time.
"That's better, isn't it?" The tone of voice coming from my left hand side was now solicitous, almost parental - it could, in other circumstances, have been a little ridiculous, coming from a child, but it struck me as being totally appropriate to the situation. The enormity of what I'd nearly done, what I'd convinced myself I wanted,
needed to do struck home, and my legs seemed to lose all power to support my weight. I slumped to the pavement, my back against the fence I'd so recently been about to launch myself from. I began to shake, uncontrollably, and suck in huge gulps of air, like a freediver coming up from previously uncharted depths. I might have cried, but I was so overwrought, I'd gone beyond tears into a haze of numbness. After what seemed like hours, but was probably just a minute or two, my mind began to function again, and my senses to focus on my surroundings. At little more than ground level, with downcast eyes, as I was, when I turned my head, almost reluctantly, all I could see were a pair of battered trainers, the lower half of a pair of light blue denim jeans, frayed at the cuffs, and the front wheel of a bike. I knew I needed to say something, but what? As my mental paralysis slowly faded, I knew only one thing would do.
"Thank you," I murmured, hoping it sounded even half as sincere as I'd intended.
"You're welcome." That more adult than most adults voice again, child-like only in pitch and timbre.
Still I couldn't bring myself to look up. "How can I ever repay you?" Clichéd, but the best I could manage.
"You're alright now." A statement, not a question. "You don't owe me anything, I just did what anyone might have done." I was just about to speak again, but I was cut short. "One thing, though, maybe...." The briefest of hesitations. "Just remember this. No-one who
really thinks about it, properly, ever wants to die. You might think I'm just a kid, what do I know, but I'm telling you I
do know. My dad died last year, he had cancer, he knew he was dying, there was nothing they could do to save him, and he loved life so much. He told me....told me not to be sad, not to feel guilty about being here when he wasn't, but if I wanted to honour his memory, to love life and live it to the full, and to try my best to help everyone else to do the same. So that's what I'm doing. I couldn't save my dad, no-one could, but I
can help you, at least, I hope so. Think about
living, not dying, that's all I ask. See ya."
He hopped on his bike, and quickly pedalled away, without another word. I dragged my eyes upwards, just in time to see a slender dark-haired boy on a mountain bike disappearing round the corner at the end of the bridge. Just a kid? Anything but. Far, far more than that, without a doubt.
****
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
