Just One Step

There was my bridge, my darling bridge, and all was right with the world. Just one step and my feet were on the wooden planks, my hands holding on to the iron railing on each side. Bliss. I turned upstream and lifted my chin. The summer breeze blew gently onto my face. It was also caressing my bare arms. Closing my eyes with a smile I breathed in. My nostrils were cooled by the air rising up from the water below me. I reached up, unclasped my long, curly hair from its clip and shook it free. I knew it was going to be a nice day. I was twenty five with my whole life ahead of me. 

I ran to the other side of the bridge and scrambled down the grassy bank. I kicked off my sandals and dipped my toes in the water. Divine. Carefully, I stood up and walked into the middle of the stream. It made my heart sing, even though my favourite yellow dress, with daisies on, would be a sodden mess when I returned. I walked away from the bridge for a while not intending to go too far. That was always my thought but I never stuck to it.

The pebbles on the bottom were slippery but I loved the sensation of my legs moving through the water, which was about three feet deep. Eventually I turned and the bridge was nearly out of sight. Again. No matter. I had been enjoying myself too much to notice. I spotted Mr Kingfisher on a low branch. He was a regular visitor, with his stunning, metallic looking blue wings and his bright orange chest. Such a beautiful bird. I'd made friends with him and he wasn't at all disturbed by me being there. I even talked to him most days.      

"Hey Mr Kingfisher! Caught any fish today?" He must have been in a bad mood as he ignored me and flew off.

I enjoyed hearing my own voice in this setting. There was an echo if you called out loud enough and most times I did, because I loved it.

"Coo ee," and sure enough my words flew back to me as if by magic. I could feel that I wasn't alone. There were tiny fish in the stream. Flashes of silver would go past me and I would bend down and cup my hands trying to catch them but I had never succeeded. Mr Kingfisher did, but only when I was safely back on the bridge and out of his territory. I could understand that.

Walking back I deliberately sloshed the water with my hands. This created interesting ripples in the stream which caught the sunlight but had on occasion drenched me if I'd done it a bit too enthusiastically!

Sitting on the grass I put my sandals back on and made my way carefully back up the bank. I didn't want mud on my dress which, in the building heat, would soon dry out. The sun had gone in for a moment but it would soon be back.

Before long I was on the bridge again and I could see Mr Kingfisher darting in and out of the stream so quickly that he was but a blue blur in the distance.

The water would bubble and break over the glossy stones at the stream's edge and I felt totally calm. The moss on the banks held my attention for a while. I was fascinated by the shapes and textures. There was even the odd mushroom growing. Then the sun came out again and suddenly the water became like a living thing beneath my feet as it twinkled and shone, reflecting the sun's rays. Butterflies fluttered by. A line from a little girl I hadn't seen for years. It was silly but it made me smile. I felt so alive here. Such a happy scene to anyone who might be watching although there was never anyone there and it truthfully was a happy scene, but I was only happy here. The rest of the time happiness was just a distant, fuzzy memory from long ago. 

The birds were chattering. I felt the warmth on my back from the sun as it went down. Time seemed to move faster here. The water was glinting as if it was smiling at me in these last rays of the sun. The rich reds and opulent oranges of the sunset made me gasp, but it was time to go. How many more visits like this would there be?

I tried to block that question out but it was getting harder. Over the other side of the bridge the trees at the water's edge caught my eye, the way some of the branches had grown heavy and now dipped down into the water. Heaviness was something I identified with. It surrounded my heart, the heart that had turned to stone. Why? That was an easy question to answer. If my heart was stone it couldn't feel, couldn't become enraged. A stone heart was safe. It protected me. It left me able to live my life, such as it was, but that was rubbish and I knew it. The heart of stone didn't protect me and it certainly didn't stop the feelings. It just squashed them, leaving them to fester, eat me alive. At times my chest became so tight it bubbled much like the water below me. 

I'd had to learn to bury my feelings from a young age, but even to a master like me it was getting harder and harder being unable to speak out, to be the real me, whoever she was. So much of my life hadn't been what I wanted it to be. The face I showed the world was a sham, always smiling and accepting of my situation. I put it on every morning and took it off every night. 

I grabbed the railing tight and breathed deeply, trying to concentrate on the wonderful flowery smell of this beautiful spot hoping that might keep me here a while longer. When all else failed this had always been my last resort, a way to calm the rage inside me but lately every breath just reinforced the stone as it hardened at all the broken places. I dreaded the day when it might crack open leaving me vulnerable, having to exist in an outside world I had no idea how to live in.

My anger was becoming too great to keep inside. Who would I be without the stone around my heart? Daisy, the little girl inside me, cried with fear at the very idea of it. Her entire world had ceased to evolve so many years ago she didn't know how to live as an adult. She needed me for that and I'd mothered her for far too long. It was exhausting and seemed so pointless. She'd never grow up.

I'd delayed as much as I could but now it was time to go back to the real world where all the people around me saw me as static. It was as if I could manifest myself as being in one place whilst at the same time being miles away, just as I was now, alone on the bridge. 

In truth I was still lying in bed in my room at the care home. I had not been able to speak, or move from the neck down since I came out of my year long coma. The doctors had told my parents that my life expectancy was twenty five at most. I was seventy six years old. I'd beaten the odds, but with pneumonia I was ready to go, hoping I'd visit my bridge in heaven. Maybe I'd finally meet Daisy, my younger self.

My life had been stolen. Seven years old when I was hit by the speeding car. Just one step in the road.