The Bridge
( As silent as a mirror is believed
Realities plunge in silence by . . . )
Once there was a cliff, hundreds of feet tall, millions of years old. Once there was a river, away down below as far as the eye could see and the stone could fall. Once there were terrible things tearing through the air and men with guns in the hot bright desert daylight, and the wind blew through the gap between the face of the cliff and the back of the neck like it wanted to be the last thing you would ever feel.
( I am not ready for repentance; )
That was long ago. Now, here, in this place? Now there is a bridge that seems to go on forever; stand on the right girder and the fog hides one end or the other from your sight. Don't stand too long, though. The bridge is old. Not the way the cliffs were old, but old as only the work of men can be: old through neglect in less time than it takes a human to live and grow old and die. When the trains rumble by above, the girders tremble and the rivets quake themselves that much looser. There were handrails once, pathways. They're not there any more.
( Nor to match regrets. For the moth )
The air is thick and cool, mist slicking the metal underfoot. You can't trust your own grip. Better not to try. Keep moving; forward is- not safer than stillness, not really, but balance is easier to keep when you have a vector and a velocity. Keep moving. Creep if you have to, jump if you must, but move. You can't stay where you are.
( Bends no more than the still )
There are men with guns here, there's that twanging bit of familiarity. If you can call them men, anyway. What's behind the mask isn't a face, and what's under the helmet isn't a brain, but they're shaped like men and they almost act like men, and they want you dead. And that, at least, is something you know very, very well. Your life or theirs, then; and there are other lives that depend on yours. Force the equation, and when they're gone, keep moving.
( Imploring flame. And tremorous )
There's a wind that blows here, twisting and winding through the gaps in the steel that surrounds you. The cliffside wind knew how very close death was; this wind doesn't care. Human beings have come here and been and gone. Why should it matter if any particular one loses his grip and falls? No pressure. Only presence. If it were blowing from your back that might at least be something; the leap from girder to concrete slab reeks of nightmares, boxes hanging over a void to be crossed, and a wind at your back would be at least a breath's worth of aid to that leap. But it comes and goes as it pleases, not as you would will it.
( In the white falling flakes )
So you move, ever forward, eyes always up. There's a tower to find, a control room, a switch or a button or a cable or something. If you're going to make it, if Eli's going to make it, you can't look down. Because there's no cliff and no desert daylight, and the wind and the air and the men are wrong, but away down below as far as the eye can see? There's the river.
( Kisses are,-- )
There's always the river.
( The only worth all granting. )
If it's not the river it's a length of the sea; but it might as well be the same thing, for all that it matters. Below you the water is moving, old and strong, waiting for the moment when your foot goes wrong or the bullet tears into you. Fail here, and whatever kills you, the end is the same. The water claims you.
( It is to be learned-- )
It would be good, maybe, to find a place where the metal is still strong under your feet- find it and wrap your arms around a girder. Scream about bad jobs and blue pills and waking up now. It would be a release. You wouldn't have to give up; you could get moving again after, if you were careful. Break, and it all comes out. You've done it before and you're still here. . .
( This cleaving and this burning, )
But that was long ago and far away, in a cave in a cliffside in what seems like another lifetime, in what was definitely another world. Crack now, and who knows whether you'll be able to put the pieces together again.
( But only by the one who )
Crack now, and one way or another, the river will win.
( Spends out himself again. )
So it's forward again. It's always forward. It's not even all that hard so long as you don't think about it, so keep your eyes up and keep moving, and when you finally reach the other side you can be thankful for the solid concrete under your feet at last. But not for too long; for all that it's solid it's not safe, because they're here and they saw you, and the gunfire rings out in a parody of welcome. Your own included, for all that you're one against their many. In the end, yours wins out and theirs go silent, and you move on.
( Twice and twice )
At the last you come to a room with a view of the bridge, stretching away into the foggy distance. It'll be a long time before you can remember that view without shuddering. You've got to make it back, after all, and knowing how far the journey really is doesn't sit easy on the mind. But there are hopes and dreams and desperation beyond your own riding on that journey, and what kind of a man would you be if you told them all, I couldn't do it because I was afraid?. So you turn your eyes away and find the switch at last. Flip it, and the bridge proper and the road beyond it opens to you at last...
( (Again the smoking souvenir, )
Can you run?
( Bleeding eidolon!) and yet again. )
It doesn't matter. You have to. They're coming. And the only way out is through.
( Until the bright logic is won )
By the time the last gun clatters to the ground and the light of its owner's eyes goes dark you're long since gone, out among the girders once more, praying that gravity forgets you and friction remembers. Your foot slips once, and a thousand nightmares (failed leaps careless falls empty elevator shafts the last instant before the bottom) jar loose- but you're still moving and there's no time to fall, only the grab and the stretch and the next step. Onward. Breathe, if you can remember how.
( Unwhispering as a mirror )
And when the bridge begins to shake around you this time, it's not a train any more. That's death coming. That's the sky shaking as the engine spins up and the machine that was once a beast cries out. It's after you; it knows where you are...
( Is believed. )
Below, the river. Above, the gunship. All around you, the metal of a bridge that doesn't know it's dead yet. It would be very, very easy to fall.
( Then, drop by caustic drop, a perfect cry )
There will be no falling today. Not for you, anyway. You've been running long enough. The concrete platform of the midway point is under your feet again. Now?
( Shall string some constant harmony,-- )
Now, it's time to dance.
( Relentless caper for all those who step )
And in the end, the river claims what it can take; and you make the rest of the crossing unmolested, and go on your way.
( The legend of their youth into the noon. )
Realities plunge in silence by . . . )
Once there was a cliff, hundreds of feet tall, millions of years old. Once there was a river, away down below as far as the eye could see and the stone could fall. Once there were terrible things tearing through the air and men with guns in the hot bright desert daylight, and the wind blew through the gap between the face of the cliff and the back of the neck like it wanted to be the last thing you would ever feel.
( I am not ready for repentance; )
That was long ago. Now, here, in this place? Now there is a bridge that seems to go on forever; stand on the right girder and the fog hides one end or the other from your sight. Don't stand too long, though. The bridge is old. Not the way the cliffs were old, but old as only the work of men can be: old through neglect in less time than it takes a human to live and grow old and die. When the trains rumble by above, the girders tremble and the rivets quake themselves that much looser. There were handrails once, pathways. They're not there any more.
( Nor to match regrets. For the moth )
The air is thick and cool, mist slicking the metal underfoot. You can't trust your own grip. Better not to try. Keep moving; forward is- not safer than stillness, not really, but balance is easier to keep when you have a vector and a velocity. Keep moving. Creep if you have to, jump if you must, but move. You can't stay where you are.
( Bends no more than the still )
There are men with guns here, there's that twanging bit of familiarity. If you can call them men, anyway. What's behind the mask isn't a face, and what's under the helmet isn't a brain, but they're shaped like men and they almost act like men, and they want you dead. And that, at least, is something you know very, very well. Your life or theirs, then; and there are other lives that depend on yours. Force the equation, and when they're gone, keep moving.
( Imploring flame. And tremorous )
There's a wind that blows here, twisting and winding through the gaps in the steel that surrounds you. The cliffside wind knew how very close death was; this wind doesn't care. Human beings have come here and been and gone. Why should it matter if any particular one loses his grip and falls? No pressure. Only presence. If it were blowing from your back that might at least be something; the leap from girder to concrete slab reeks of nightmares, boxes hanging over a void to be crossed, and a wind at your back would be at least a breath's worth of aid to that leap. But it comes and goes as it pleases, not as you would will it.
( In the white falling flakes )
So you move, ever forward, eyes always up. There's a tower to find, a control room, a switch or a button or a cable or something. If you're going to make it, if Eli's going to make it, you can't look down. Because there's no cliff and no desert daylight, and the wind and the air and the men are wrong, but away down below as far as the eye can see? There's the river.
( Kisses are,-- )
There's always the river.
( The only worth all granting. )
If it's not the river it's a length of the sea; but it might as well be the same thing, for all that it matters. Below you the water is moving, old and strong, waiting for the moment when your foot goes wrong or the bullet tears into you. Fail here, and whatever kills you, the end is the same. The water claims you.
( It is to be learned-- )
It would be good, maybe, to find a place where the metal is still strong under your feet- find it and wrap your arms around a girder. Scream about bad jobs and blue pills and waking up now. It would be a release. You wouldn't have to give up; you could get moving again after, if you were careful. Break, and it all comes out. You've done it before and you're still here. . .
( This cleaving and this burning, )
But that was long ago and far away, in a cave in a cliffside in what seems like another lifetime, in what was definitely another world. Crack now, and who knows whether you'll be able to put the pieces together again.
( But only by the one who )
Crack now, and one way or another, the river will win.
( Spends out himself again. )
So it's forward again. It's always forward. It's not even all that hard so long as you don't think about it, so keep your eyes up and keep moving, and when you finally reach the other side you can be thankful for the solid concrete under your feet at last. But not for too long; for all that it's solid it's not safe, because they're here and they saw you, and the gunfire rings out in a parody of welcome. Your own included, for all that you're one against their many. In the end, yours wins out and theirs go silent, and you move on.
( Twice and twice )
At the last you come to a room with a view of the bridge, stretching away into the foggy distance. It'll be a long time before you can remember that view without shuddering. You've got to make it back, after all, and knowing how far the journey really is doesn't sit easy on the mind. But there are hopes and dreams and desperation beyond your own riding on that journey, and what kind of a man would you be if you told them all, I couldn't do it because I was afraid?. So you turn your eyes away and find the switch at last. Flip it, and the bridge proper and the road beyond it opens to you at last...
( (Again the smoking souvenir, )
Can you run?
( Bleeding eidolon!) and yet again. )
It doesn't matter. You have to. They're coming. And the only way out is through.
( Until the bright logic is won )
By the time the last gun clatters to the ground and the light of its owner's eyes goes dark you're long since gone, out among the girders once more, praying that gravity forgets you and friction remembers. Your foot slips once, and a thousand nightmares (failed leaps careless falls empty elevator shafts the last instant before the bottom) jar loose- but you're still moving and there's no time to fall, only the grab and the stretch and the next step. Onward. Breathe, if you can remember how.
( Unwhispering as a mirror )
And when the bridge begins to shake around you this time, it's not a train any more. That's death coming. That's the sky shaking as the engine spins up and the machine that was once a beast cries out. It's after you; it knows where you are...
( Is believed. )
Below, the river. Above, the gunship. All around you, the metal of a bridge that doesn't know it's dead yet. It would be very, very easy to fall.
( Then, drop by caustic drop, a perfect cry )
There will be no falling today. Not for you, anyway. You've been running long enough. The concrete platform of the midway point is under your feet again. Now?
( Shall string some constant harmony,-- )
Now, it's time to dance.
( Relentless caper for all those who step )
And in the end, the river claims what it can take; and you make the rest of the crossing unmolested, and go on your way.
( The legend of their youth into the noon. )