stuartforsyth

I have lived next to this bridge as far back as I can remember and my time is nearly up. I have watched people come and go, moving over it and under it as my memory fades and becomes thin and scattered, like fireflies tossed in a summer breeze. Part of me still longs for those green tree-lined banks sloping down into the muddy brown waters; for a time when men still valued such things over their barren concrete worlds. I remember how young and hungry the night was in the long distant past; when even the naked painted men feared to cross the fallen trees at dusk. The finite allotment of time trickled so slowly back then, divvied up between all who lived in the world. Now there are so many hurrying to fit their lives into the billions of tiny shards that need to go around; each generation with so many more years and so much less time.

I have lived next to this bridge as far back as I can remember and my time is nearly up. It doesn’t make me sad anymore for I am a thing of the past, relegated now to fiction and children’s story books. Perhaps my apathy comes from the fading but I am at peace with that. If you stand very still on a quiet night and hold your breath between the rumble of the trains you may still hear me breathing or catch two pinpricks of light staring back at you.

I have lived next to this bridge as far back as I can remember and my time is nearly up … but not just yet.

~Stuart Forsyth