Boy, Falling from a Bridge

Brown water swirled onto the meadow, confusing the boundary between
river and bank, but the meniscus had yet to burst. The bench is
situated on an embankment that was becoming an island. I watched the
lapping while I ate my sandwiches to ensure my way back to safety was
not engulfed. The sodden wood was placed here in loving memory of Holly
and Alan in August 1982. It was their favourite vantage of the river,
which they loved in all its seasons. Additionally, I am informed, A.T.
loves, forever, the anonymous '?' and BOSS, who is SPURS 4 EVER has
spent time here too. I placed a plastic bag over the engraving to
protect my suit.

The oak tree by the bench was still naked and the host of snowdrops
surrounding it the previous day had been stamped into the ground. A
songbird picked twigs from the flotsam moving past. Clumps of debris,
branches interlaced with plastic bottles, fibres, grass, pulled by
forces beneath the surface that I do not fully understand. Sometimes
the rainwater and melt washes unexpected objects from the hills.
Polystyrene blocks, dead fish, a bicycle wheel and once, the head of a
ram, or it may have been a man.

I emptied fragments of crisps into my throat, ceremoniously folded the
packet and placed it in the deepest puddle I could reach without
wetting my shoes. The boat circled for a little while until it was
suddenly caught in unanticipated currents and pulled out into the
mainstream to start its long voyage to the sea.

That's when I saw him, the boy on the bridge. Upstream from the bench
there is a bridge. Stone and strong, a rule on one of the arches charts
the current water level and records past years. The storms of 82, the
winter of 56 and, above the arches, an ancient and great flood,
impossible to imagine the water three times above my head. I was
examining the marks when I saw him, the boy.

The boy was still young enough to be called a boy. He was short for his
age and that made him look plump. Not so plump as to be described as
fat, but if he were chased he would probably turn red then stop, lean
over and pretend to vomit. I never saw the boy running though. He had
just climbed over the wall and onto the outside of the bridge. The boy
faced away from the river and in slow, infinitesimal movements, he
turned right round towards it, still holding onto the parapet with a
chubby hand.

He watched the water. I could see his eyes, tiny things in his face,
focused on his own twisted reflection. I was sure he hadn't seen me.
The boy waited. There was no evidence that the boy has any friends. I
expected children's faces to pop up from the wall, for the gang to dare
him on. But I was proved wrong. He waited alone, a standoff between the
boy, the river and me. Then, after several minutes, the boy
straightened up in his waterproof coat. He took his hand down from the
stone, placed it by his side and drew in a breath. His predicament
looked precarious now. There was no return. He closed his eyes and drew
in another breath. Then he opened his eyes and looked around. He looked
past the river, further than the field, the factory, far beyond the
town. He looked right through me. Maybe he saw the ocean.

The curvature of the boy's plump body plotted a beautiful arc as
dictated by the purest mathematics of gravity and force. It turned ugly
when he belly flopped into the filthy water.

When the boy entered the water he submerged for sometime and then burst
out like a cork, bobbing. The current was strong in the middle of the
river and it pulled him under again. I stood in front of the bench. I
wondered if Holly and Alan had seen such a spectacle. I almost held my
breath. The second time he bobbed up, he started gasping, drowning I
suppose. He had been dragged some distance towards me. I could see him
better, all those expressions on his red face, swallowing, gulping. The
boy was raising his arms above his head, although his jacket was heavy
with water and pulled him down, pockets filling with liquid instead of
air. I imagined that I waded out into the stream without regard for my
safety or shoes. "Man pulls boy from swollen river." "Man drowns in
foolhardy rescue attempt." The brave don't stop to think.

The water pounded against the boy's head, over it and he was submerged
again. I thought about the boy. He was still approaching me, caught in
an eddy. When he surfaced, he had been thrust towards the bank. He was
still flapping and spinning around when he entered still water. Brown
foam and shredded leaf matter floated on the surface in a spiral of
scum. Then he saw me. He stopped struggling. He did not cry out. We
regarded each other. We orbited each other. The river threw him towards
me but he did not make a sound. He did not call out for help. He did
not acknowledge me, he regarded me, and I regarded him.

He was barely an arm length away and I could have reached out and
pulled him to safety without endangering myself, but there was no cry
for help. Whatever brought him to me was not a cry for help but a
premeditated act it seemed to me. Maybe his fall was the only grace he
would know, the pinnacle of his existence that he could never hope to
surpass. I was an unintended bystander. To interact would change the
event. I felt it better to observe.

The river swept the boy away from me, claiming him again, carrying him
out into the flow, on towards his destination. I watched the body
become a blob become a dot become a speck. I could see his unafraid
face and tiny eyes that looked out to sea. I stayed to watch the river
a little longer. An unusually large branch that passed by me but
otherwise there were no unexpected objects that afternoon.