Bridges

There are bridges everywhere.

            There are areas in this world, little pockets and crevices, carved out by God’s hands, which harbour the places in which universes interlink. You will find them in the back streets, highlighted by neon strokes and lettering, with webbed lights, like star fragments, edging out the mouth of what, for most, is the event horizon.

            If you dare to be swallowed by the darkness, to fall into the network of Heaven, Hell, and all in between, then I suggest you watch your step. Underneath the music’s heartbeat, the thud of footfall and drumming of rhythm on the dance floor, the devil comes bubbling up through the cracks.

            Angels don’t stumble upon these bridges often, but every so often friends lead them in, drawing them over the horizon like excitable children with tethered balloons. It is not a place in which they belong, so they sit uncomfortably, draped in clothing that is all colour and exposure, whilst their companions bask in the music and try and drag them into the light.

            It is not until the friends fall away, dragged off by intimacy or alcohol, that the devil manifests. He waits in the shadows, armed with crumpled notes and charm, before sliding over to the angel, letting his gaze rove over her appearance like molten honey over crêpes. A smile quirks his lips, for she is beautiful in a way that is riddled with vulnerability and innocence, and he longs for nothing more than to slide into it, to feel its warmth.

            As his presence swarms her vision, for a second there is nothing but waxy features, distorted by club lights. Then he settles in front of her, the devil himself, but she cannot see it – all she sees is glinting eyes, a dark sweep of hair, and a face arranged into the epitome of ruthlessly rakish good looks.

            He smiles, and then come the words. Parting his lips, letters spinning out and melding together into compliments, a poetic stream that the angel cannot help but drink in, unbeknown to the fact that it is poison. To her, it tastes like love, and so she lets it work its way into her heart and pull it apart at the seams.

The devil takes hold of her heartstrings. She is his.

            Even when she leaves the bridge, the devil’s hold remains. He is heavy in her heart, and she cannot, and will not, sever their link. He pulls her closer, ensnares her within chains and layers and webs of promises of love and beauty, and leads her into his world – into Hell. She looks out into the violence and sees the beauty just as he does, for he dresses it up in his silver-tongued words so that, to her, the filth is gold. This is the world she adores, for it is his.

Time goes by, and the devil pulls her further and further into Hell, so far that, when she grapples for the surface, her own world – her Heaven – is nothing more than a patch of sky against fiery blackness. He pierces her vulnerability and carves her out into a raw, hardened edge of a creature, one who knows nothing of innocence and goodness. She will steal, she will fight, she will kill for his love, until it chokes her and burns her from the inside out. The devil is nothing more than a puppeteer, hands plucking at the strings of her heart.

That is, until he stumbles back to the bridge, eases his way up through the cracks in the floor once again, and sets his sights on another, new angel. Clean. Pure. Vulnerable, just as the last one was.

So he cuts the first angel’s heartstrings.

He severs the link, severs the love, with sharpness so fine that she can barely feel it, and she is lost. He takes hold of the second angel, fills her with poison, and buries himself into the warmth of her heart, leaving the other one to die in the cold.

The angel cannot leave Hell, not even when the ties are cut, because as it is broken, so is she. She can only drag herself through the back streets, past the bridges between Heaven and Hell, and stare into the mouths of the black event horizons that she never truly escaped from.

There are bridges everywhere.

Real bridges. Bridges made of columns, of steel and concrete, which tower above expanses of water, unwavering, constant and rigid. Bridges which burn with light at nightfall, which arch out over black rivers and look just like the edges of the world.    

Slowly, inch by inch, the angel drags her way to this bridge, bearing the weight of her broken wings, which are only half as heavy as the burden of her mistakes. She pulls herself over the concrete, tears tracing her skin just as the devil’s fingertips did.

Then, finally, after timeless hours of pained shifting, she stands. At the edge of the world, she unfurls her cracked wings and looks out into the realm that she used to be a part of, before she descended into a hellish world of misplaced love, violence and backstreets. She looks back at her sincerity, at the angelic girl who belonged to the host, who was pure, and needed not the light of the bridges to find her way, for she emitted enough of her own. 

An angel. That’s what she was.  And she’d like to be one again, just one last time.

She steps out over the edge of the bridge.

And, like an angel, she falls.