Bridge

"If you were to run far, far away from everything, until city streets turned to rocky paths, until the smoke-filled, polluted world turned to an infinity of clear blue skies, you might run into a small town. You, a city-person, might look at the little houses, and smell the scent of the world, a mix of grassy plains, wood, and honey, and think to yourself: What a beautiful place.

"And you wouldn't be wrong. The peaceful, small village, long since abandoned by the world, is such a glaring, refreshing contrast from the world you're used to, I suppose. It's quiet here. 

"I guess I've just never liked the quiet." 

An outstretched hand reaches out towards the night sky. It clenches into a fist, and jerks away, as if trying to rip the sky away. The sudden movement shifts the wooden planks below her, and her breath catches in her throat: a natural involuntary reaction, she insists. Quickly, she calms down.

Her heart is thumping, though she denies it. She claims she is tired, and stands on the creaking brittle bridge, and leaves for home.

"Not today," she says, disappointed. Deep down, there is a spark of relief. "Tomorrow, I'll come back. Tomorrow, for sure." The bridge groans in protest under her feet. Lifting the yellow warning tape above her head, she once again says that she would come back, repeating "tomorrow, for sure" under her breath.

There is no one to hear her words. She is talking to nobody. All that is there is a rickety bridge, unused for decades, and the violent river beneath. Her cowardly lies and her denial is directed to nobody but herself. 

Even she doesn't believe herself entirely. And, if even she won't believe herself, who would?

When she leaves the small town as usual, just before the break of dawn, to head to the broken bridge, she is almost reassured by the thought that no one would miss her, that no one would even notice that she was gone. But even though she tells herself over and over again that it'd be a good thing if no one ever knew she was gone, the sting in her heart insists otherwise.

It never takes long for the pang in her heart to resound to her head.

"Doesn't it hurt?"

"It does." She answers. "Of course it does."

"Don't you ever think about giving up?"

"Of course I do. It's why I'm here. I'm giving up."

"No, you aren't."

"Yes, I am. All that's left to do is wait for the bridge to collapse and I'll-"

"Wait? Why are you waiting?"

"..."

"If you truly gave up, you wouldn't wait. You would jump."

"I-"

"You don't want to jump. Why?"

"I'm-"

"Even though you don't want to live, you don't want to jump. Why?"

"I'm scared."

"You're scared? Of what?"

"I'm scared of dying."

"So," she hears herself scoff. "You don't want to live, but you're too scared to die."

"How pathetic." She leaves, and the girl is left by herself on the bridge yet again.

Another day passes, and, just like the bridge, the girl, fragile and broken, finds herself barely standing in the middle of two places.