Birchwood Bridge

   There is something magical about things of sensationally ordinary quality, an enchanting mediocrity that, in it’s irony, stirs the imagination into a frenzy. Birchwood Bridge was just such a place, so thought the inhabitants of Ballad falls, which is no where near any falls. Every now and then the subject came up at one of Ballad fall’s fine eating establishments and was greeted with a gentile nod and noises of ascension. “That bridge is immaculate,” Some of the well dressed men would say with polite smiles on their faces, (Here the word immaculate means due for disaster) “Crosses right over that pond in the park.” This was true: Birchwood bridge did, in fact, cross over Bellbrook pond, in Bailey park, the small patch of green surrounded by the fresh clipped lawns in the center of town. It was a sturdy foot bridge with hand rails shaped like the arm rest of an eighteenth century antique parlor chair. It’s spindles, fashioned, like most of the bridge, by old Mr. Bailey himself were renowned throughout the county for their elegant symmetry. Yes, the people of Ballad falls would say to themselves, through Venetian blinds, on windows facing the bridge, Birchwood bridge is one of those places.

   So they watched it. They watched it on Mondays and Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. They went to church on Sunday and thought about it until twelve, then they watched it again. Housewives watched it in the middle of the day stretching the carpet with pacing, wearing in the hard wood floor with nervous foot tapping, piling ash from sleek cigarettes in ash trays by the window. Children watched it as the sun set from the edge of drive ways, sitting on bicycles which had only been excuses to go outside and watch it. Teenagers pretended not to watch it, but when their dates had left the car and they were alone for a few minutes they turned down the headlights and watched it. Even the men, when they came home late from the office, put their hats on the hook and watched it with tired eyes. The highest priced houses in Ballad falls faced it, and, in the quiet suburban darkness, they seemed to stare at it with yellow window eyes. In Ballad falls it was as if the very moon and the stars watched Birchwood bridge.

   Then, one morning, (it was a Monday) there was a prophetic cry in the center of town. Men and women across town froze like mannequins in a store window. Whether they were shopping or commuting to work, they looked at each other: “Today?”: they said it with their eyes. Then, like a very riot assembling in slow motion in a mutual state of trepidation and interest, the town snuck out into the street. There were businessmen with their ties untied and a single button buttoned out of order, house wives with their hair still honeycombed with rollers, little boys in footy pajamas with airplanes and dinosaurs on them, and teenagers who weren't really that interested, they just went to be ironic. There were old men with half shaven beards and half made up old women wandering through the crowd without being entirely sure why there was a crowd in the first place. This parade of half dressed half aware citizenry converged like a liquid of low viscosity on tiny Bailey park at the center of town. There, on the grass, in the park, was a small boy on a tricycle, and he was pointing, with the emphasis of an eccentric hunting dog, at an indiscreet bird perched casually on the hand rail of Birchwood bridge.

    It tweeted and hopped around as if addressing each member of the makeshift mob in an equally nonsensical and ignorant way. Then, cordially bidding the town of Ballad Falls adieu in a flurry of feathers, it left it’s mark on the previously stainless handrail of Birchwood bridge and flew off cheerily whistling a tune.

   "Was that it?"  One dumbstruck member of the crowd intoned breaking what had been a particularly blank silence directly following the song bird's departure.  "Was that what?" An old old voice responded from the very rear of the crowd.  "You know: it. was that it?."  There was another moment of silence in which only the wind could be heard blowing the leaves in the trees of Bailey park.  "I guess that had to have been it."  Someone finally said and the crowd began to grumble and disperse, the townspeople moving on to things of newly greater importance, like stoves with pots boiling on them and refrigerators hanging open like saloon doors in a western. 

Reviews

[Sam Cambell]

A funny story. This could do with a good read through for minor mistakes in grammar and flow and all that nonsense, but I loved it. You phrased things well, and the I love the idea of the entire town sitting there waiting for something to happen to that damn bridge already. Good write.