the bridge
A version of this will appear in Passage, Vol. 2: Rewilding
imagine this nightmare, though it’s not really a nightmare, it really happened, but it’s easier to imagine as nightmare— your job is to wander around the jungle, and every time you find a bridge you have to blow it up. you don’t want to do it, you don’t even want to be there in the first place, you hate the jungle, but there’s a man in charge and you have to do what he says. and then every night the people who live in the jungle, who have always lived there, the ones who built the bridge originally, they come out every night and rebuild it. and the next day you find it intact, and the man tells you to blow it up again. and you do.
this happens day after day, so that you come to expect it. and you think how much longer it takes to build a bridge than to blow one up, and how even so, night and day being equal, and however well you destroy it, that every time you blow it up it’s still going to reappear the next day. and if the people in the jungle have that many men, that much willing labor, that much determination, how much longer will it be until one night they finish rebuilding the bridge and decide to come find out who keeps blowing it up on the other side? and will you be ready?
every day you blow up the bridge. you’re the destroyer. the blood is on your hands. not the man who’s ordering you to do it. not the people who live in the jungle. the people you live in fear of. the people you have to hate just to survive. you yourself blow up the bridge. it’s your fault. and you think well, if i just keep doing this for a few more months i can go home. and they haven’t crossed the bridge to come find me yet. and i haven’t died here yet so maybe i won’t. so yeah, i’ll just keep blowing up the bridge.
eventually you do get out of the jungle. you decide the jungle was so bad you ought to settle down and start a family, and so you do. you take them on a trip across state lines, over a mighty river. when you’re approaching the bridge you start to get a strange feeling. you’ve tried your best to leave the jungle behind, to forget everything, because you hated it, it was a nightmare, but you feel the jungle returning as you approach the bridge, although by now you don’t even know it’s the jungle, it’s just a feeling. and you don’t understand what’s going on because it was decades ago, and you are back home now, and you have new people around you, and you are driving a car. you don’t have the time or attention to understand what’s happening.
so to be safe you slow down. you approach the bridge. you creep over it in the car very slowly and carefully, trying to stay safe, to keep everyone safe. the bridge seems so tall, and the river so wide and mighty below. they’re all honking behind you, and that’s not helping, but you have to keep everyone safe and you’re not even sure why it’s all happening.
you finally get across the bridge. as you drive away safe, you might recall the bridge in the jungle, but you’re on a trip to visit family, and that’s a whole event of its own that demands your attention, the main event. the bridge thing is just a small part of it. and your family is just glad you all made it, and hope you do again.
on the way back home you remember what happened the first time, and as you approach the bridge, you decide to do something different. instead of going very slow over the bridge, you decide to go very fast.
you get over the bridge. now for awhile, when you look back, you remember the bridge as something you conquered by going fast. so when you have new problems you try to solve them by going fast. your bridge has become a different bridge. you still get that feeling you got when you first had to cross state lines, over the mighty river. except now you get that feeling every time you have to solve a problem. every time you have a new bridge to cross. and slowly you are forgetting all about the jungle, and the original bridge.
yes, mother, i did blow up that bridge. yes, father, it was wrong. —some words you will never say, because it wouldn’t make sense to, because when you saw them during your trip there was too much else going on and it never came up, because you are too grown and it would feel strange, because your mother and father are both gone, or because you can’t make them understand. and even if you could, what could they say? they weren’t there when you blew it up, day after day. they didn’t build and rebuild the bridge every night. they never lived in the jungle.
years later you are older, your children are grown, and you have time for yourself to think. more and more, you return to the jungle. more and more, you revisit it in your mind. the place you hated and can’t forget. you find distractions. you find new ways to go fast. but you’re getting older, and slower. more and more, you’re having nightmares about the jungle. the slower you get, the slower your mind gets, you start seeing the bridge in real life too, in representations. you try to tell your family about the bridge but they don’t understand you. they say your mind is slowing down.
they say there is no bridge, you’re safe here. no one is coming over any bridge to come get you. there’s no one here but us. and you see that they don’t understand. you say, there was a bridge, and now it’s everywhere, and now they’re really after me, and they come day or night, one way or another. but still no one understands. they say you’re safe here. you’re safe. and more and more, you sleep. but they’re still after you. and you know it’s all about the bridge, and there’s no one who can help you. you sleep and sleep. you see the bridge, the real bridge, in your sleep. and it’s all you now. so more and more, you sleep. because they’re coming after you, and they won’t stop coming, and it’s all about the bridge. you sleep and sleep, and wait to see the bridge.