Sibling

1

We take a break from our regularly scheduled programming because I have to really figure out what this story is about. When I was high the other night and had written it for the first time I kept jumping and shivering like there were explosions inside my body. It was like fireworks shot from my stomach to my neck and I crossed my arms and stood from place to place as though under a spell. And I realized that the bridge was god, the story was about god, everything was god, The Presence, the man upstairs, the proof that there is good and bad and we are inherently aware of it and stop asking for further rationalization because that is an excuse to act poorly. And then I thought that I didn’t like the story, it was boring, and it was boringly written, and it wasn’t simple enough, and it was structurally too simple.

I rewrote it, most of it, parts of it came out very similar, structurally it was very similar. I went and wrote it by hand as though that would force it to come out better. This time I knew what it was, it was about god, remember, now you have it, now you can do it, convince them, god is real and great and don’t tear it down or at least be aware of it, be aware that you are destroying it. That was what I wanted. My protagonist is always the one person who is aware, even though he is not himself aware. The world knows that he knows even though he does not himself know. It’s not important that he know that he knows; only that he knows at all. And every time he makes an effort for others to see, like Cassiopeia, the doomed prophetess, no one listens. But he is not forecasting doom. He is forecasting life. People seek doom and when you point them to life they do not listen. They can only see doom. When is the market gonna crash? When is the world gonna end? The sky is falling. The boy cries wolf. Life is death. Death is eternity.

Pause. Breathe. Collect everything, pick it up, slow down, reacquaint yourself with your surroundings. Should I write it again? It costs so much to write. So much thinking. Work. Fighting laziness over and again, fighting the urge to stop and give up and tell everyone like the rest of them that the world is ending.

The world is not ending. Not any faster than it ever has been.

2

We have gone off track. This is about the story. A town has a bridge. It has been at the town’s core for ages. The bridge must be torn down. Why? The time has come. Old things must be replaced with new. There is no space anymore. Because I said so. Change is the only constant.

The bridge will be torn down and everyone accepts it. They are ready; they expect a spectacle. Good stories produce a spectacle. The town gathers: the bridge is about to be destroyed. But there’s a chance for redemption – an old man appears. God? A reminder of life, of history, of death? There’s an old man sitting on the center of the bridge and so it cannot be destroyed. No one must die. It is not a town of sinners. The destruction is delayed, postponed.

No matter – we try again the following day. Now fewer people care, fewer show up. The onlookers stare. The instructions are given to begin the destruction… and again. The old man again. Defying space this time. Defying logic. Nobody understands how he has gotten to the center of the bridge. Both times a child notices, a child who is not cheering with the rest of them. A child there to see something but he does not know what; he is duty bound. He must attend. Again the destruction is postponed; again everyone goes home. Life carries on. Bridge or no bridge. Traffic stalls. One more day.

By now there are barely any onlookers. People have chosen their lives. The bridge is uninteresting. It is as good as destroyed. Do people cross it? Mindlessly. It leads from nowhere to nowhere. East to west, north to south: who cares. The onlookers stare up and the instructions are given to blow up the bridge again and everything is in order and silence reigns over the universe for a frozen fragment of time. And again–undeniably–the old man is sat upon the bridge. He is up there in the same spot and the few onlookers only laugh and the demolition is stopped and now everything is in turmoil. A tremor passes through the earth. The town snaps and notices the nothing and then returns to its motion, its noise, its action because that is what towns do. That is how life works: it has inertia, rock hurtling in space, it keeps going and going and going forever till we die.

But the child is there this time. The noticer. He is there at the entrance to the bridge. He can see the old man, can sense that he is flesh. A human being. He bites his tongue through an onslaught of fear and walks the bridge until he reaches the old man.

He crouches down and his butt is on the floor and his legs slide in a semi-circular motion and he is sitting next to the old man. Two pairs of legs dangle off the edge of the bridge. The old man stares out, wistful. The child stares up at him. They sit there for a minute in a cavern of stillness in the throes of destruction, far removed from the town and the townspeople and life and motion. They sit there and they notice things: they notice the sunset, the pale tan grainy shoreline, the bundles of trees that eat up the horizon. They notice the water, its ripples, how blue it is in some places, like a gemstone, how it becomes green and gray, sparse and solid. They notice their hands, the old man’s wrinkled and veiny, skeletons, the child’s fickle, like branches.

They breathe, synchronously, the child careful to copy the old man’s movements. Big lungs and little inflate with the air so far above the surface, above humanity. Above all of us.

The boy stands up. Dinnertime, he says. He’s well-behaved. He’s not a risk-taker. Sometimes, you can feel a mother’s calling like an ache. You can feel in your stomach that it’s time to go home. He stands up and he walks back across the bridge and he keeps walking, forgetting himself and where he’s come from.