The Bridge To Nowhere

With Thanksgiving approaching my work schedule has become quite erratic of late with working through the shutdown and flipping back and forth on different shifts to meet diverse needs, ( mostly my need to eat) I worked at whatever was available for me to do. The factory where I work is eerie and silent with the exception of a few maintenance workers as I move with ease across the floor collecting instruments for calibration. With my day now done, and only one more day to complete this week, Leah and I head out to spend the cold and cloudy afternoon together. (Something we rarely get since I work nights). On our way now into the city some 14 miles away, we turn onto one of the main roads that lead into Anderson. As we traveled, I could not help but notice how the rain and the wind had almost stripped the trees bare of their once colorful foliage which left them looking like naked, angry giants along the way. It was then that I spotted some sort of rock structure some two hundred yards off the main road. It was standing alone and silent in the cold gray of the afternoon. Normally this would not have been seen, but the forest now denuded announced its presence to those lucky enough to be driving the speed limit.

I told Leah that I had to stop and get a closer look at this ancient monolith that has escaped my attention for years. Finding an abandoned lot, we pulled in a parked. I grabbed my camera, gave Leah a soft peck on the cheek and headed out to solve a mystery. I stood with patience at the edge of the four lane highway as drivers eager to get somewhere zoomed by at 70 or better. I waited a full three minutes before finding enough space to scoot into the median. If I were thirty years younger and thirty years more foolish, I could have done it in a New York minute. Nevertheless, I made it safely to the center of the highway only to discover an endless line of speedsters coming from the opposite direction. I waited and I waited, but the traffic was not letting up. Finally I decided to make a run for it… (Now I know how those poor little squirrels feel when they try to cross the road… (With cars honk..honking and rude drivers swearing)…I was panting and sucking air like a four alarm fire. I at last made it to the other side safely heaving and thinking it used to not be this way.  

I walked slowly now towards the edge of the woods and into the forest in eager anticipation. My imagination flew like the now distant traffic behind me. I thought of forts, of Indians. I imagined the civil war battles, and I soon found myself bouncing from rock to fallen tree with the eagerness of a child on Christmas. It was then as I came down the edge of the hill that I was able to get a good look at what had captured my imagination. It was an old stone bridge and it was just sitting in the middle of the forest. It was a one lane bridge to nowhere. I snapped a few photos and then began to explore the area around the bridge. Judging from the growth of the trees, it appeared that this was at one time a bridge that catered to a small but growing southern city for there was evidence of a road beneath the tall grass. I tried to find a date of some type on the cornerstone, but much of the structure had given in to the ravages of time. I walked up and sat on the center arch atop the bridge and imagined the horse drawn carriages and the ladies in their hats and parasols. I saw shoeless children and old poor dogs. I bore witness to farmers bringing their vegetable to market to sell…I could smell those days and taste the easiness of the time…I could almost even see the other side. Yet I began to feel the cold now, though my nostalgia grew warm. I wondered as the night began to fall, do the ghost of those days still travel this bridge to nowhere. I was hungry and Leah was still awaiting my return. Slowly and reluctantly, I left what I had found and trekked back into the present with its speeding cars and speeding everything. However, someday I think we will return and this time we will cross this bridge to nowhere and I will eat of the vegetables from the farmers cart, I will toss the poor looking dogs a stick and if I feel up to it…I may even join the shoeless boys playing in the creek.

J. Allen Wilson © ELEVEN 2006

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