Life - Restless Bridges

Life - Restless Bridges

I'm restless. Knew that all day. Packing life into boxes, trinkets here, trinkets there. Pages of text, carefully sorted away, tucked away and archived. Things I'll never look at again until the next time I move. It's an existence where I can get through an entire day without speaking a word sometimes, left to my own devices, in the solitude of my own mind.





My feet carry me before I know where I am, and I'm surrounded by trees, music between my ears, a pen and paper. I'm walking, without knowing why. My feet carry me onto the bridge, and the roar of cars does nothing to dampen the noise of murmurs in my mind. Up and down, once more, across the bridge, restless, pacing over a kilometre. An old man jogging laps back and forth, a girl with red top who is rollerblading, and a boy on a bicycle that looks at me strangely. I imagine that lost in my own thoughts, I must make for a strange sight. I stop halfway down the bridge, and on an impulse lean on the fence. Their existence falls away.

The sun is already dropped below the horizon, and splashes of red are disappearing into the dark. On an impulse, I've already pulled myself up the guard-rail and am sitting above a sheer drop of a 100 feet above the river. Why? Why not. I think for a moment that I might even stand, staring out over the water and the green and the blue.

I'm not suicidal, I'm just looking to fly.

Hello up there.

The girl in the red top with rollerblades. She pulls up alongside me.

Hello down there.

You're not...thinking of jumping are you?

Am I? No I don't think so.

No.

Then what are you doing?

What am I doing?

I just came to get a little...a little perspective.

Ah. Aren't you, you know, afraid you might get knocked? Or lose your balance?

I'm alright with that.

Oh. I'm Rachel.

I'm Lester. How do you do?

I guess I'm good, I was just curious about you.

I would be curious about me too.

What do you mean?

I have no idea how I got here.

Oh. Are you drunk? Or high?

No. I'm just...thinking.

Oh. What are you listening to?

This? Just sort of a post-rock band. You?

I'm listening to Matthew good. What's post-rock?

Sort of futuristic rock music, usually without lyrics. It's like having a movie score in the background.

I see. Hold on a second.

And just like that, she pulls her self up to straddle the fence next to me.

I'd ask if you feel safe doing that in rollerblades, but it's something of a moot point isn't it?

Hah, too late I guess hey?

Yup.

And we sit like that for a long time, and I listen to my post-rock music, while we watch the color bleed from the open sky.