The Haunted Bridge (This is actually a part of my novel in progress. Enjoy!)
The bridge was unremarkable, a red and white covered bridge, the weathered paint flaking off and showing the bare wood underneath. Sawdust covered the floor and through the gaps you could see the dry wash of the riverbed, empty after the spring rains had run off leaving nothing but the empty summer to fill it. On the great crossbeams, guardrails, sills of the windows, the floor, the walls themselves, people had written or carved or spray painted names and slogans. One said “Every house has its story.” One said “This rotting soul.” Mostly they were just names, names of faceless lovers that had come and left their idiot mark and then had gone, memories of the bridge fading like the lights of the Midway after the nights revelry. But everyone who signed their names…well, let me just tell you the story.
Some of them got off easy. Sure, relationships would end in a confusing jumble of inexplicable hurt feelings and coldness. Once passionate lovers would cool mysteriously just days after painting their declarations of love, long married couples would find that, for the first time in their lives, they had nothing to say to eachother. Some were more unfortunate. Eric and Jean had laughed under the bridge’s rafters, talking of their impending trip to Louisiana, and had signed their names very much in love. They were still very much in love the next week when Eric was drafted, and this hadn’t cooled when a misguided US missile brought his chopper down in the swampy depths of the forest south of Denang less than a month later.
And some were very unfortunate.
Some were, in fact, morbidly unfortunate.
“Let’s stop here,” Brenda said. “My feet are tired, and there’s no one around. We can kiss if ya want.”
Gary made an exaggeratedly lewd face and puckered up comically. “Come here, baby,” he said without any emphasis, and she laughed and flung her arms around him, careful not to drop the purple abomination of a teddy bear he had won for her shooting baskets. She kissed him hard on the lips. He staggered back causing her to overbalance and caught her neatly. He kissed her more deeply this time, their tongues touching slightly, sending an electric tickle up his spine. He helped her to her feet and then they sat on the rail, holding hands and looking down at the dry wash of the streambed below. Distant sounds of the carnival seemed distorted this far out, like they were coming out of a radio. They sat in silence when suddenly she perked up.
“Hey. You’ve got a marker, right?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Why?”
“Let’s sign our names, wouldn’t that be romantic?”
He groaned theatrically and rolled his eyes. But she knew that he didn’t mind it, that in fact he did think it was romantic.
“Idiots names and not their faces always appear in public places,” he said, but he was already reaching into his backpack for the marker. She giggled and held his arm.
“What should we write?” he asked.
“Oh, just the standard. We don’t need to stand out. I just want something we can show our kids someday. You’re parents were here once.”
“Okay, baby,” he said in his inflectionless tone. He wrote “Gary and Brenda, 1976” in black, block letters on one of the floor-to-ground beams and circled it. He stood back to admire his handiwork and she put her arm around his waist.
They drove home that night on roads that seemed etched from the darkness, their headlights doing little to dispel it. The eerie dashboard lights cast a dead glow on their faces. They pulled into the lot of the apartment they shared and turned off the headlights. As they were climbing the stairs, Gary said that he wished they had thought to turn on one of the lights. He took the key out of his pocket and fumbled it into the lock and opened it. He turned on the lamp on the phone table and walked into the bathroom. Brenda closed and locked the door. As he readied for bed, she lay on the bed, thinking about their night at the fair and how they had moved past the problems that had plagued the start of their relationship. She felt warm. She felt loved.
She heard something move under the bed.
Gary was brushing his teeth and humming a song they had heard on the Midway that night.
She dismissed it as fancy and looked over at the dormant fan in the window. The night had cooled after the day’s heat and they weren’t going to need it. She stood and removed it from the window and listened to the cricket’s steady hum and smelled the dewfall; it was a beautiful night. She looked out at the stardrenched back yard, at the grove of weeping willows and the small pond that had entirely scummed over but was still a pleasant addition to the yard, at the shed. She didn’t notice that Gary had ceased humming in the bathroom.
(Continued)
The bridge was unremarkable, a red and white covered bridge, the weathered paint flaking off and showing the bare wood underneath. Sawdust covered the floor and through the gaps you could see the dry wash of the riverbed, empty after the spring rains had run off leaving nothing but the empty summer to fill it. On the great crossbeams, guardrails, sills of the windows, the floor, the walls themselves, people had written or carved or spray painted names and slogans. One said “Every house has its story.” One said “This rotting soul.” Mostly they were just names, names of faceless lovers that had come and left their idiot mark and then had gone, memories of the bridge fading like the lights of the Midway after the nights revelry. But everyone who signed their names…well, let me just tell you the story.
Some of them got off easy. Sure, relationships would end in a confusing jumble of inexplicable hurt feelings and coldness. Once passionate lovers would cool mysteriously just days after painting their declarations of love, long married couples would find that, for the first time in their lives, they had nothing to say to eachother. Some were more unfortunate. Eric and Jean had laughed under the bridge’s rafters, talking of their impending trip to Louisiana, and had signed their names very much in love. They were still very much in love the next week when Eric was drafted, and this hadn’t cooled when a misguided US missile brought his chopper down in the swampy depths of the forest south of Denang less than a month later.
And some were very unfortunate.
Some were, in fact, morbidly unfortunate.
“Let’s stop here,” Brenda said. “My feet are tired, and there’s no one around. We can kiss if ya want.”
Gary made an exaggeratedly lewd face and puckered up comically. “Come here, baby,” he said without any emphasis, and she laughed and flung her arms around him, careful not to drop the purple abomination of a teddy bear he had won for her shooting baskets. She kissed him hard on the lips. He staggered back causing her to overbalance and caught her neatly. He kissed her more deeply this time, their tongues touching slightly, sending an electric tickle up his spine. He helped her to her feet and then they sat on the rail, holding hands and looking down at the dry wash of the streambed below. Distant sounds of the carnival seemed distorted this far out, like they were coming out of a radio. They sat in silence when suddenly she perked up.
“Hey. You’ve got a marker, right?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Why?”
“Let’s sign our names, wouldn’t that be romantic?”
He groaned theatrically and rolled his eyes. But she knew that he didn’t mind it, that in fact he did think it was romantic.
“Idiots names and not their faces always appear in public places,” he said, but he was already reaching into his backpack for the marker. She giggled and held his arm.
“What should we write?” he asked.
“Oh, just the standard. We don’t need to stand out. I just want something we can show our kids someday. You’re parents were here once.”
“Okay, baby,” he said in his inflectionless tone. He wrote “Gary and Brenda, 1976” in black, block letters on one of the floor-to-ground beams and circled it. He stood back to admire his handiwork and she put her arm around his waist.
They drove home that night on roads that seemed etched from the darkness, their headlights doing little to dispel it. The eerie dashboard lights cast a dead glow on their faces. They pulled into the lot of the apartment they shared and turned off the headlights. As they were climbing the stairs, Gary said that he wished they had thought to turn on one of the lights. He took the key out of his pocket and fumbled it into the lock and opened it. He turned on the lamp on the phone table and walked into the bathroom. Brenda closed and locked the door. As he readied for bed, she lay on the bed, thinking about their night at the fair and how they had moved past the problems that had plagued the start of their relationship. She felt warm. She felt loved.
She heard something move under the bed.
Gary was brushing his teeth and humming a song they had heard on the Midway that night.
She dismissed it as fancy and looked over at the dormant fan in the window. The night had cooled after the day’s heat and they weren’t going to need it. She stood and removed it from the window and listened to the cricket’s steady hum and smelled the dewfall; it was a beautiful night. She looked out at the stardrenched back yard, at the grove of weeping willows and the small pond that had entirely scummed over but was still a pleasant addition to the yard, at the shed. She didn’t notice that Gary had ceased humming in the bathroom.
(Continued)
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