His every footstep landed heavy, choices stamped in cement too hardened to notice them. Below him snaked thousands of blank eyes, souls rushing through life at the pace of heavy traffic. The melody of rubber against concrete silenced the dull thud of progress as he walked the tightrope between now and his destiny.
He looked at his feet as he walked, the only flash of color in this world of gravel gray. See, the sun was shining brightly that day, but he shut his eyes against the glare instead of embracing the light; he found its brilliance to be as blinding as its absence at night. And onward he plodded, his heartbeat the drum line, the shuffling of his feet keeping rhythm in this fatal dance.
A bird soared above him, stamping her shadow upon the ground a little brokenly, like frames in a moving picture. As he walked, two semicircles fogged up the lower half of his glasses, proof of the warmth of his ruddy cheeks. Broken glass, green and silver shards of last night, littered his path and he crunched over it, half hoping it would hold fast rather than give way to his undecided stride.
He reached the center of the bridge and stopped. The swooshing of drivers whizzing by was perfectly balanced here, a comfort he rarely found elsewhere in his life. A horn blared somewhere in the sea of painted metal below him, pop can sized cars with tiny angry drivers. A man in a crane with a highlighter yellow hat shaded his eyes against the sun as he shouted orders to those below him, words that couldn't swim above the city sounds.
He placed his hands on the railing and felt decision weighing in his gloved hands--cold, hard, and definite. He pulled one leg over the rail, then the other. In that moment between rock and air, he never felt so unsure of anything in his life. Irony laughed at him holding on so tight right before he had planned to let go. The wind pushed at his back and black words warning of icy bridges scolded him as he felt his feet slip on the cold metal.
His heart was beating faster now, a dance with steps that he couldn't outrun. He saw a finger point up at him from a child on her way to school. Her mother's mouth turned into an "O," and he watched as she covered her daughter's eyes with her hand, a shield blocking his radiating pain. He turned his head to look behind him, but no hand was there to pull him back--only the sun caressing his face, the breeze whispering along his ear, and the stringent railing holding fast on the brink of life and death.
He wondered if he had it in his heart and in his pride to climb the hardest path back to the other side. If he could live with himself knowing he had almost committed suicide. If could trust himself to live knowing he had chosen it. He saw his own shadow looming far below him, flickering over the hoods and roofs of cars that passed below. In that shadow he saw a coward too afraid to hang on and too afraid to let go.
He had gone that day to the bridge to find balance. To hear the wooshing of cars equal. To have the light behind him and his own shadow before him. Ask anyone who has walked such a tightrope, balance requires great strength. A constant shifting, a fight by the second. He released the grip his right hand held on the bridge. Determined, he swung himself around to face the light and to climb the most difficult four feet of his life. His life.
