Go on, go under the bridge, you urge, laughing. Catch the Troll!
I shuffle my feet and grin, I don’t really want to but I will. So I peek beneath the simple stone structure. It isn’t much of a bridge, honestly. It seems more like a broken collection of boulders haphazardly put together. I hear your mischievous giggles and the sound of running feet; no doubt you thought to see me from the other end, poking your tongue out at the pale oval of my face.
I never did see you at the other side.
A carpet of virulent green moss covers the underside of the bridge. It provides a weak luminescence, shading the darkness a peculiar tinge. The mist of my breath coats the air. It is completely silent. The rustle of leaves and branches retreat in deference; it seems natural and serene. I struggle not to breathe, to keep from trespassing on this place. It feels holy. My head slowly penetrates deeper; the velvet touch of the darkness closes in. It isn’t so much an absence of light as it is a wholly different place, a new dimension of texture, sensation and sound. I feel the weight of it pressing against my eyes, so I blink in quick succession. In the thick gloom, shape is lost; I am fluid shadow.
Another face, monstrous and huge, could have passed an inch before mine and I wouldn’t have known it. Cool air shifts around my head, carrying on it the musk of mud and earth and bugs. It sticks in the back of my throat. The ponderous weight of stone is shifting, I realise, so very slightly that had I not been completely still and unbreathing, I wouldn’t have heard it. It’s a long, low groan, a bubbling brook of words so tightly entwined as to never be separated and heard individually. The stone is strangely warm beneath my hand, and I grip the edges harder, straining to hear what the bridge is saying.
The pitter-patter of your footsteps comes back, first soft, but increasingly harder and I turn, just in time. Boo! you yell and slam into me, laughing all the while. Even surprised, I can tell something’s not quite right with you; the sound is forced and half-scattered. My pent-up breath rushes out with the impact. I half-fall, hands squelching into the mud. It creeps between my fingers, thick and full. I flex my hand, luxuriating in the sticky pulp. You’ve stopped laughing, moved back away, looking at me in confusion. I get up, wiping off the mud and dirt with a grimace.
Come on, you say, let’s get out of here.
What’s wrong?
You don’t answer; just stare with those puzzled eyes as though you’d seen something you couldn’t quite believe, before finally turning away. I jog to catch up, slip a hand into yours and we walk through the sink-sliding earth, through the trees.
*
Do you remember the first time we went there?
It was cold, as usual, but the stars lit up the cloudless sky. We stumbled, laughing with tequila-breaths, hands roaming. Your hair smelt mint fresh. The naked woods crept in around us, thousand-fingered arms crooked beseechingly. Eventually, we came to a clearing, just before the bridge, glowing with a soft green light. It’s small, but unusually wide and rugged; almost like a natural formation of rock spanning the memory of a stream. The first time I saw it, I got the funny feeling that it was waiting for something, a giant mouth drooping sadly to the ground. You dropped to the floor to lie on your back. I descended with somewhat more grace, settling so my hips straddled yours.
I leaned over to kiss your lips and our tongues began to dance.
Soon we were as bare as the woods, limbs moving, entwining, grasping – senses reeling with the mix of alcohol and sex. My face nestled between the crook of your shoulder and neck, sucking and kissing. I couldn’t see your face but it was turned away from me. You were staring at it then, weren’t you?
What was it you saw?
*
You were never the same after that.
Things got cold and strange; you didn’t smile as much, the half-crazed light was gone from your eyes and you seemed listless and pale most of the time. It felt as though we were having a long-distance conversation, words and meanings delayed and distorted by the yawning gulf between us. You never did tell me what it was you saw that day. I tried to bring it up a few times, but you would turn away; stifle my words with a glare or get tight-lipped and silent.
The days flickered by. It didn’t help. With time, it became all the more stark and raw for its isolation. There was a way to mend the break, but neither of us wanted – were brave enough – to take the first steps over that crossing. Only once, more persistent than usual, did I truly press the issue. Filled with whiskey-fuelled courage, I kept prodding and pushing until you finally gave in.
It was weird, I dunno, you said. I can’t really remember.
You were lying and we both knew it but I said nothing.
It’s like…I can’t say, really. You’ll think I’m crazy.
I won’t, I insist and ignore the pleading look in your eyes.
It was…
Wonderful? I interject.
Creepy.
You turn away from me. I wait, for the dam to break and the stream to pour forth. Moments later, my patience is rewarded as the words, a soft burble at first but gaining strength and volume, spring from you:
You couldn’t see anything for a long while, just the darkness. After a while, you thought you heard something. Thinking it was me, you listened hard. There was a voice, but you couldn’t make out what it was saying, it was mumbling softly. You couldn’t see my face on the other side but it was as if that suddenly didn’t matter. It was very green and warm. It felt…welcoming. Like you were coming home. Had come home already. You ran your hands up over the stone, felt the tiny little cracks all throughout but it didn’t seem weak or crumbling, just ancient and sad.
That’s when it got strange. The stone shuddered beneath your hand and began to move; the whole bridge shifted and rearranged itself with a long, deep groan until a face formed in the darkness, beneath the arch. God, it was huge; definition came from a thousand different cracks and you realised then that the whole bridge was its body. Your arms slowly curl around your chest and you begin to shiver as you go on: there was no troll beneath the bridge. It was the bridge, but something was wrong with it… And it…it wanted…
So you ran and ran, never seeming to come round to where I was but eventually you made it and you were laughing, relieved, happy and scared all at once. You didn’t even look at me properly. And then…
But you can’t go on anymore and break down into sobs. I can’t speak, my mouth is dry, eyes staring wide, but I don’t doubt it for an instance. All the while, you cry, and cry and cry through the night.
*
It’s one of those things. You know, you play a game, you say a phrase – something so second nature to you that what’s being said doesn’t even register; you have the sound but have lost the meaning. Catch the Troll, you say and laugh – after all, there’s no possibility of every actually catching one and so, it’s safe. What happens if you ever come across one? The reality of it is so huge, it undermines the ground you walk on, the thoughts you live on, the breaths, dreams and hopes that make up your world. How do you continue on? It doesn’t hurt you, doesn’t ask you questions or fit into a neat fabled category – it’s broken and needs fixing.
What do you do when it asks for help?
*
I wasn’t surprised when news of your disappearance spread.
I knew where you were, after all. That’s not what I told them when they came round to dutifully ask their questions. They didn’t really care anyway. I could see it in their eyes.
It was a full week before I went down to the bridge again.
It could be my imagination, or maybe it was the clear light of the sun, I’m not sure, but it seemed smoother, lighter and somehow more graceful. I stopped and stared at it for quite some time and the hours trickled by. It was like seeing a three-legged dog suddenly righted. It wasn’t just a broken stone edifice anymore, but a true bridge. Frost glimmered on the grass opposite, a low hanging mist wreathing the trees with demure dress. Where did it lead truly? That place, whatever it was, wasn’t for me and it wasn’t quite finished yet, wasn’t quite ready. Something was still missing. As the sun went down, life-blood leeching into the blue sky once more, and the chill descended, the answer came. It was so simple I had to smile.
I walked forward slowly, shedding my clothes and shivering in the brisk dusk. The darkness beckoned. I dropped to my knees, crawling into the warm space beneath the bridge, coating myself in mud that squished and squelched. There was a sigh, a whisper of affection as the shadows wrapped themselves around me. Cicadas thrummed in welcome.
I was home.
*
The mud hardens and cracks. Moss grows in the splices, coating my skin with furry colour. The earth rumbles in her sleep, ever turning in restless slumber. The air is alive with the warmth of growing greenery and the trickle of the stream, thought to be dead and gone but returning stronger with each passing day. All is well. The days meld into one another and I grow lonely.
No one crosses my bridge.
I just want someone to talk to, other than the trickle of water seeping beneath my grey-green toes, just trying out its first baby words. I spill my need into the one request, repeated over and over again until it seemed to become its own language and bounced off the walls in ever increasing whispers; won’tyoucomeandplaywithmewon’tyoucomeandplaywithmewon’tyoucomeandplaywithme, oh please won’t you come and play with me?
Until one bright winter day, the first steps in an age pad into the ground. The tremor travels up my spine, a queasy feeling of excitement. Was it time? Had it finally come? I hear a boy’s loud and clear answer,
Come on Mom, it’s time to play!
A large smile cracks open across my face.
