Reach
by Bill West © 2007
Maybe time stops. You float inches above the water as if caught in a vast and invisible fist. Silence. A breeze ruffles your hair. You open your eyes; raise an uncertain hand as though to bless the waters of the Severn. There is still movement. The river rolls, barbell flicker like ghosts and dart beneath the shadow of the bridge. About your head evening swallows twist and swoop.
Perhaps God will give you a second chance -- raise you up to safety. You could take the rocks from your pockets and trudge back through Paradise Fields to collect your fishing gear. Drive home, after all.
Would you park the car silently, slip the key into the front door, climb the stairs – undress in the dark, slide naked between cold sheets beside your wife? In the morning you could choose to start again. Make it all right.
But time does not stop.
You plunge like a bent spear into deep water, strike rock, shatter bones. Despite yourself you try to live, arms milling, lungs bursting.
In the morning your wife will come. Farm labourers will turn her away and continue to drag the river. The police arrive, ask questions, and put the familiar story together. In the houses, in the streets, in the Coroner's Court, family and friends share the tale. It repeats in their minds. If only they had known, perhaps a word, a touch.
In the evening, in their imagination they watch as you fill your pockets with rocks, watch as you clamber the ancient parapet of the stone bridge. As you fall, they reach out.
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