Serial Starter from Jasmine Groves

The Bridge
Written by: Jasmine Groves









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The wind whipped at her hair, gently lifting it from her collar, it felt gentle and calming like a lover’s caress, the sun that was peeking through the grey clouds let light filter through her closed eyes and made her cheeks warm like a sweetheart’s blush.

So still, standing without movement, arms by sides, feet closely together, face tilted slightly to the sky. Her mind taking in the stillness while contemplating the options. Turmoil and calm all around and inside her at once.

She is completely unaware of her surroundings, but those people whisking past on the way to their busy jobs or loveless homes just see a lady standing on a platform in the middle of a bridge, leaned slightly forward, not looking distressed but perhaps aimless.

Her presence on the bridge doesn’t make sense to the cars whizzing by, she appears to have no reason for being.  But she is quickly forgotten as the stress of everyday life envelopes the cars’ inhabitants’ thoughts.

Standing on the bridge with her grey hooded sweatshirt flapping in the wind she is completely unaware of the thoughts of the people passing. She is caught up in remembering so many cherished thoughts that appear to her almost as a haze and each time she feels she can capture a memory to hold onto it disappears like steam from a jug.

A tear trickles down her face and she lifts a hand and roughly brushes it aside, disturbing her long black silky hair in the process.  She reaches for her wrist and removes a hair tie and quickly twists it around her tresses, pulling her hair harshly back and unveiling stunning icy blue eyes.

It’s the first time she has opened her eyes since standing on the bridge. Her heart jolts in her chest and she feels that almost for a second it might stop on its own accord and make her decision easier.  Too afraid to make any sudden movement she continues to stand soldier straight and flicks her eyes from side to side and up and down.

She hadn’t imagined what a void would be in front of her, the river stretched for miles to either side, almost appearing as two horizons, the city at the river’s curve looked like the hastily skewed blocks of a child playing, stacked one upon the other in unorganized chaos.

The sky was almost engulfing, not a fog but more like an unreachable, grey muddy haze, but it wasn’t cold, the wind was chill but the day wasn’t cold.

***

Under the bridge in the dank and cold, wrapped in filthy blankets a sleeping body is awoken. She raises her weary head and leans out from her hiding place; her chocolate brown eyes can make out a grey lumpy shape in the morning light.

She shuffles in the blanket, she doesn’t care about the figure above, and life has made her weary, unforgiving.

Begrudgingly she rises to her feet heading for the ladder to the bridge.