“The bridge often leads nowhere.”
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The bridge stretched long.
And our man – standing at one end of a valley –,
prepared to cross it to the other end.
1
Of the bridge our man could not help feeling that it was fearfully unsteady.
Its wooden frame – carved out of trees from the valley beneath it – groaned.
It twisted under the strain of its threading ropes.
“What is a dangerous bridge?” he thought, “and can it really be a bridge?”
To strengthen himself, our man thought about other bridges he had crossed in the past––but, sadly, he could not think of any just then.
No doubt he had crossed bridges before, but none were so remarkably dangerous.
Though he persisted in trying to recall, his attempt, like the bridge, led only to an uncertain place in his mind.
He thought about the bridges crossed by others; but here too he found little comfort: in all those stories he could not recall whether these bridges were dangerous or not. Our man pondered the implications strewn out in the yawning valley below.
But the wind then added to the calamity.
Our man quietly observed the bridge swing:
Right … Left … Right … Left … Right … Left …
Yet somehow it was equally unsettling to see it swinging in the other direction:
Left … Right … Left … Right … Left … Right …
This hypnotism persisted until a conclusion came bursting through:
The bridge was being toyed with by some god absurdly concerned with unsettling this out of the way bridge in the middle of an out of the way land.
“Of course!”
This thought strengthened our man, not slightly, since he was now, as it were, in this out of the way place, held in the view of some far-removed and insane god.
What a mysterious bridge this bridge was.
2
Of course, it was also dark.
And although the street lamps on the other side of the valley were lit, their illumination was blotted out by the darkness above, beneath, around and even on the bridge.
The street lamps were mere isolated beacons.
Our man would need to get to them.
Looking up, our man closed his eyes before opening them again
––but not in the manner of a blink. Our man did not blink.
The unplucked stars glittered.
Our man’s gaze fell onto the surrounding mountains; he saw them dimly curl their sable shoulders as though against the wind––or even as though the mass of their blackness indicated that the navy star-flecked sky was yet to be filled-in completely:
as though the universe were just endless sky––yet to be painted.
The bridge heaved over the open mouth of a blank canvas.
3
The first step stepped.
Hands on the wooden banister, our man could not even see his feet.
He touched his toes down gently with each step, afraid that nothing solid would be there to hold him––even the banister was invisible.
Our man breathed in the sable wind.
4
In time, he began making his way more confidently; the street lamps were still terribly far away from our man––and the unplucked stars fell from his worry.
Toward the middle of the bridge our man had to stop.
Not only had his left toe discovered a gap in the bridge floor the size of which he had no way of estimating; but a terrible wind slammed into him from the right side and sent the bridge churning askance.
The stars were underneath him and the street lamps ahead streaked in semi-circles.
He felt that his grip would pass through the ropes; that his feet would break through the floor. Then the emergency dwindled as the bridge settled once more.
Having weighed the gravity of his circumstance, our man decided to turn back …
5
But the floor leading back had disappeared.
Our man tried to recall a similar situation, but all he could see, even in his mind, was black. He stayed still, half expecting the floor beneath him to evaporate; expecting – thankfully – to be swallowed at any moment. But neither of these occurred.
It was just the case that our man could not move in either direction.
He spun toward the street lamps, then toward the place that he came from, then again to the street lamps.
The bridge settled over the mouth a blank canvas
6
The wind returned, gradually at first––then more intensely.
Building up in notches, the gusts came from all directions: what might have made him fall forward was countered by what made him fall back.
There was nothing left to do: it was a leap in either direction, wasn’t it?
He was already fallen, lost, gone, ended, wasn’t he?
To leap forward, toward the street lamps, the lamps that somehow became his goal; that was surely preferable than to leap back––to where he came from!
There was no guarantee in either direction.
He braced himself against the wind.
Holding the wooden banisters.
The homogeneous black of the valley began to glow in its own way.
The unplucked stars glittered.
He breathed in the sable air.
7
He leaped.
The stars were above him and the street lamps ahead fell low
before rising dramatically.
7
He leaped.
The stars were above him and the street lamps ahead fell low
before stabilizing again.
7
He leaped.
The stars were above him and the street lamps ahead fell low
before veering right.
8
He leaped.
The stars were above him and the street lamps ahead fell low before
––evaporating.
9
Our man slammed into a standing position once again, seeing nothing.
Turning, he again saw nothing.
Where were the street lamps?
9
Our man slammed into a standing position once again, seeing nothing.
Turning, he saw the street lamps.
9
Our man slammed into a standing position once again, seeing nothing.
10
Our man slammed into a standing position once again.
11
Holding the banisters, he cautiously stepped forward and realized that the floor extended ahead of him; he stepped back and found that it also went in the other direction.
The bridge had returned to its original state.
But everything was irreparably dark; our man could see nothing and had lost track of which direction he was in. The lamps, the stars; everything was extinguished.
Desperate, he leaped once more.
11
Our man fell into the mouth of a blank canvas.
Our eyes cannot tell us where our man has gone,
nor if he has even fallen.
Blindly, we feel the sable mountains hunching.
––But the street lamps, the streets lamps!
They are being lit one by one.
–––––––––––––––––––––– THE END
[For a brief essay revolving around the themes presented in this investigation, refer to the “Old Thought” On Returning.]
idiotic investigations 