Bridge Keeper

The sun is setting in Paradise. As night comes, he might spend an hour out there, standing on the old cement bridge, without seeing a single pair of headlights cut through the darkness on the distant road.

The Bohemian, with a red tie, he has a tattoo on his right hand, three dark-blue dots in a line near the wrist.

His countenance is reserved and thoughtful, dark hair, dark eyes, a face so finely proportioned that it could almost be feminine.

The equinox has brought with it Northern storms that leave the spangled skies hard, cold, and bright after their passing. Broad leafed and lush, dark ferns grow up the face of the arroyo like a living carpet at his feet.
Behind him, a decaying fortress, packed with dark-clad figures, clings to the edge of a precipice. In the darkness and silence of the night there are hidden forces at work.

Weather-stains scar the old bridge with shadows that seem to spill away from him as I approach. He rolls his lovely full eyes, flashing them at me for a moment.

A certain haggardness is perched upon him. It looks like he might have been up for five days straight.

I try to see the world as he does, participate in his innermost thoughts, ascend a doorless staircase, cross the entrance to his spirit. His mind is free of fearfulness; an aberration grown from mere eccentricity into an immutable attribute.

"I don't see why they should have sent you down,” he says at length, breaking the spell.

"Modestia is a beautiful virtue.” I reply.

His respondent laughter is soft, cool as a shaded pool. I notice the good rich smell of his breath.

"What did you see today?" I ask.

"All I can see, I see at once, and every moment I see," he responds.

There is an edge to his tone. Restrained as he is, to an extraordinary and painful degree, the belief of his heart is in force and in pain.

He calls himself a puppet who can see the strings, but he is much more than that, The Lord and Knight of the Dark Void.

Men gave him this name in view of his claim to honor; for shining in darkness and in the shadow of death, for fighting, slashing, and dealing swift ruin in red combat.

To comfort his heart, I pass him a bottle of rum. Wafting across the improbable reddish purple night sky is an old song from the ancient garden of dreams.

We look to the fortress. The sight of the revelers appears to interest him.

Their faces stand out strangely in the lights and shadows of the tower, black-clad automatons basking in the cigarette glow of their own impossible glamour, conspirators convinced that their plot will succeed.

Frolicking in little notes, the music now quickens into rich tones and swells before bursting and toppling into silence, diminishing as if it never were.

His livid lips do not move, his eyes gaze unblinking, the bottle resting untouched in his hand. Distant stars gleam quietly over the lush oak forest undergrowth, frozen in stillness.

The most important music lessons feature no music at all.

Without a word, he returns the bottle uncorked and resumes his study of the distant road, absent of light.

Old Words, New Words

Old words, new words, like black birds and white birds whirling in the gray of a cloudy muted sky.
Black birds, assaulted by rain, tremble and struggle while the white birds whirl, unperturbed by wind and water.
They are from the sea and are turbulent in their own nature, these elements cannot surprise them. They are beyond surprise and awe, twirling in a wind swept horde above the glistening dripping world, elegant white birds, storm frenzied white birds, sky slicing white birds.
The black bird has found sanctuary somewhere in the eves of a house. Usually such a big strong bird, it has frightened me to see him wobble across the sky. Even knowing that he is now safe, I feel pained imagining the moment when the storm first caught him.
What was he doing when wind and water decided to throw birds across clouds? I feel frightened, even though he is now safe, even though I was today safe.
I feel fear knowing that chance will leave me to a storm one day, that everyday that I breath cannot be a safe day. And what will I be doing when forces greater than my self grab me up?
Surely no one is immune. No beast that walks, flies, swims, wriggles, or crawls can count itself safe forever.
Old words, new words, neither come quickly enough.

Some Things Should Be Like That

In the comic book store.
For so long I looked at it, not knowing what it was.
I went away.
I came back.
Again and again. Circling the table like a shark, tasting this mysterious object with my eyes and fingertips. Still I did not know what it was. Suddenly I realized; no one knew what it was, least of all its makers, and it made me feel glad because there should be things like that in the world, things without measurable purposes, and here I had one in my hands.
That time I didn’t put it down. I bought it and slipped out of the lighted store into the urban night. The darkness was thick despite the few fairy lights that glowed over lampposts or sped by in the streets. There are many places in the city where the light does not manage to reach.
It is also dark in the country, I know, but there you can see the stars and the stillness is what can put the terrors in you. In the city there are no stars because city light is a sort of lesser darkness that eats up celestial light, its brown halo holding at bay the fire and ice of the cosmos so that its own breed of glimmer and shadow holds sway. City darkness moves. It pulses. Here, there are things oozing and swirling, killing and eating and dying very near to you, in the murk where you must not look lest you enter into their order of existence.
“Can you help me?”
A face emerged from the blackness, separating itself from the thick communal dark. It was a cocoa colored heart shaped face that seemed to come bleeding out of the inky depths for a moment.
I heard the voice first, sweet and trembling, like the trill of a little bird. It was the voice that stopped me.
“Can you help me?”
It was only after I had stopped that the face surfaced and hovered timidly at my elbow, petite, neither young nor old but weathered into timelessness.
I knew as soon as I heard the voice that I could help. My hand had dipped swiftly into my pocket and retrieved twenty three cents.
“This is all I have.” I said and she was already thanking me in that voice and asking if I had bought a comic.
“I did buy something.” I said, “And now I’m broke.”
Her face was so sweet and her voice so delicate and I was lying only because I could now see another dark shape behind her, leaning against the wall. I wanted to give her more, but I wasn’t sure it was safe. My pay for a day of work was in my wallet in cash, too much money to open it here on the street.
“No, wait,” I said, “but I do have a little more.”
I dug into the coin pouch sewn into the side of the wallet without taking it out of my purse and filled her hand with pennies and dimes.
“That’s it.” I said and started to go, feeling disappointed with my meager offering.
Then I remembered that I was carrying a bag full of various breads from the bakery where I worked.
“Oh. I do have bread.” I said hopefully and began to dig in the satchel. “How about some pretzels.” I said putting them in her renewably emptied hands.
“Oooh. These are good.” She said and looked eagerly to her partner who was smiling now in a gentle compassionate way, as though he were a saint in a black hoodie leaned against the wall.
The longer I stood with them the further the darkness seemed to recede from our vicinity. They became distinct and less shade like. I was grateful that I was helping. One day, I felt, it could be me asking for help.

Now I slid back into the flow of the sidewalk, back into the ranks of the purposeful marching to their independent destinations.
Drugs or alcohol ushered some into the world of shadows, but there were others that were there because something inside of them was different. I was like that. I didn’t know what that something was. Nobody knew what it was, and there should be things like that in the world, things without measurable purposes, and here I was one of them. But there is little market for such things, despite their rarity, and I knew it might be only a matter of time before I became a shadow on the street, with no past and no future, depending on those that had not yet become me for my daily bread.
I knew it, but it was not yet time for me to step into the darkness and join in the pulsing. There might yet be some other way, so clutching the thing that was not a comic book but could only be defined by what it was not, I hurried on into the underground train station to wait.

Gentle Touch

The awesome power of the sea cannot be described to one that has never felt it. To stand on the shore and listen to that roar and dance around in that foamy main is to be like a mouse stepping gingerly about in a lion’s beard. We frolic and play in the mouth of a beast and on days when it’s mood and fair it tickles our ankles and laps at our thighs and rocks us gently. On days when it feels in a black mood it slaps our faces and stings our eyes and grabs us and tosses us down and holds us under, snatches a shovel or pail or small child and carries it away to satisfy the whims of the dark eyes of dripping fanged beasties of the deep sea. In some places you can look down at your toes through clear and gentle waters and in others the water of blue and green and churning salt lather hides things that snake slimily around your legs or rise pointedly between your toes so that you lift your foot and hurry away from whatever it is, maybe backing out of the water, hesitant now to accept its cool wet kiss. What sharp toothed things are hiding under that laughing undulating surface? Eels and sharks and things with claws and other thing that strange children warned you about when you played on the sand as a tot. What were those things that they warned you about? Warned you that they were hiding under the sand in the water where the surf breaks. Something that you thought you could see as a line under the sand, something like a snake but worse because it did not even need to breath air. What things are out there? The multicolored beach balls, the bright umbrellas pushed into the sand have never dreamed of the things that lie out there waiting for some unsuspecting fool to wade out too far or splash too much thus giving away their precise location. And yet, often the innocent play around in the briny wet and feel the tingle of power splashing their tummies. The sea can be tolerant and affectionate. It will wash its long lost kin as an old grandmother bathes an infant, with the softest possible touch. With the same tenderness, it will feed them small shiny wriggling things, even if like some infants we bite at the very teat from which we wish to nurse. We would do well not to forget that it is a lioness with whom we are dealing, and her great age leaves her with no less ferocity than she was capable of in the days when her waters were red and not blue. So tread lightly little mouse. Play carefully, and never let down your guard.