The Bridge

The Bridge
by Chris Nance

Hundreds of feet above the bay, I was ready to throw myself from the bridge. The sun was just beginning to set behind the low clouds on the horizon, painting the sky with brilliantly mixed hues of orange and lavender. I released my grip, ready for the fall, when a voice in my head spoke to me. ‘Roger, you don’t want to do this.’

“The hell I don’t!” I replied aloud. “I have nothing to live for!”

‘You have yourself to live for,’ was the reply. ‘Please, step down before it’s too late.’

“Great, now I’m going crazy!” I replied. “That’s just the icing on the cake!” I’d lost so much, my wife and son in an auto accident, my business from the depression, my house and savings from piling bills.

‘It’s not your time,’ the voice said. ‘Don’t destroy everything you’ve gained.’

“Gained?” I defied. “My family, my life! I have nothing! No one cares about me!”

‘I do. And you still have everything,’ it corrected. ‘You have your health and your abilities…your innate wisdom. You can still help so many.’

“But I can’t live without them,” I sobbed.

‘They’re not gone forever. Just waiting,’ the voice reassured. ‘Waiting for you to fulfill your obligations here.’

“But I…I’m so lost.” Tears streamed down my face.

‘If you take your own life you’ll sacrifice ever seeing them again. Is that what you…what they would want?’

“No.”

'Remember yourself and share the mission, the love, still buried within you.'

I stepped down off the edge that day a changed man. I’m not sure if it was my conscience or my guardian angel, but that was the day I decided to dedicate the life I saved, my own, to others. And I never crossed that bridge again.



298 words