I spanned across a little stream, carrying people from one place in life to another, from joy to sorrow, or sorrow to ecstasy, births to funerals to airports and planes, or simply from home to work and work to home again. Footsteps stumbled by all day, never stopping, never seeing--but sometimes the crowds thinned, the walking slowed and the eyes met. That was when the stories were made.
There was the brown-haired man who walked with a Lily in the mornings and a Rose in the evenings, who kissed both and loved neither, but who stood in the afternoons with his mother, feeding pigeons and sharing smiles. There was the mother, who looked back every time they parted, who knew exactly what her son was - and who he was capable of being.
There was the man with the stained shirt and the happy heart, whose wife ran after him daily, infallibly, for she had forgotten to give him his lunch, and he had forgotten to take it. He turned around, remembering, just as she came panting behind him- both pairs of eyes rolling in exasperation, both pairs of lips upturned in secret delight. A more synchronized dance I had never seen.
There was the white-toothed woman who was more capricious than a diamond in the sparkling sunlight. Never was there a more vivacious imp than her in company, but she seemed dulled to coal whenever she came to me alone. Her clothes fully covered her body, but they hid more than just her modesty. Behind closed doors, behind closed doors.
There was the young butcher's apprentice, who, it seemed, had his existential crisis scheduled for the Thursday evenings he visited me. Head down, frown up, he'd amble over, staring at his feet and his bloodstained nails, throwing pebbles in the water and glaring at the sky as though it had caused him personal affront. It was the bloody sunset he had special attention for, though, and he devoured it hungrily, all the ugly shades of red he was so familiar with, made so beautiful. It was when he came to me on a Wednesday, or a Monday, though, that I worried, and then I made sure to push my finest pebbles up for him to flick to the water; to push my railings a little higher, so he wouldn't fall over- accidentally, of course.
There were the workmen who came by once in a while to give me a touch-up, the ones who called out to women and the ones who didn't; the ones who meant harm and the ones who just didn't know any better. Some of them, I made sure, left with pebbles in their shoes that would stick in the tiniest corner, and bother them for days to come; some I made sure even the mud didn't touch.
And then, once in a blessed blue moon, was the gentle old lady in white, my love if only she'd been a bridge and not a widow bride, who came by for no other reason, it seemed, than to sit with me, and watch with me. She'd sit there the whole day, one of my pebbles in her hands, rubbing its smooth edge, smiling at the happy forgetful couple as I smiled, glancing with gentle concern at the apprentice as I did, exchanging nods with the cheat and his mother as I never could. Once, I thought, as she put back the pebble in its place and gathered herself to leave, she even whispered a goodbye to me.
~Sam
