"The world" he mused, "has been given over to evil."
A lonely figure sitting crumpled on the mountain's edge. Was he contemplating jumping off? To splash into the cold waters never to be seen again? What did he see through his faraway eyes? Or had he simply stopped seeing anything at all?
His was a body without dreams. The sleet, the snow, the sun poured down upon him and yet move he not. Why move when there's nothing to do? Why be when there's nothing to be? He'd done well, he'd been somebody and all it had gotten him was...here. The stars of the night his only friends, the moon his mute companion. The bridge builder had a new profession now:
"I've come watch the paintings of God in the sky."
But the world cried out to him yet. Desperate souls see only their desperation and anxious pleas besieged his ears.
"Come, Bridge Builder! The Old Woman needs to pass the gorge to get her medicine. Her pain knows no end!"
"Then pain becomes her," explained the one who built no more.
The reply never changed. As each tale of woe was laid before him, the bridge builder sat unmoved. When one constructs one's fate, what is left to do but live it? His beseechers sought to escape the fate they created. They wished to drink from the cup of death and find no remorse in it. But there must be remorse for such a thing or life has no meaning.
For twenty years, they had pushed the bridge builder until finally the Tipping Point had been reached. Maybe that had been the goal all along. For each bridge he created, wars of souls came to consume it, leaving rubble for art. "Our expressions cannot be denied!" claimed the destroyers. "The world must serve war or none can be safe." And thus the world was made safe for war, but not for bridges.
The bridge builder stretched out his hands in exasperation. "Which do you wish to serve? War or bridges?" Each time the answer was the same: bridges. So build them he did. With art he would overcome war, making each one more beautiful than the last, more refined, more boldly reaching out for life - and more beloved. But for the war machine, the greater the beauty, the greater the glee in its destruction. To see the sad faces of the townspeople cut off from hope gave heart to the warriors, fools who'd already cut hope from their living minds.
Lobotomized soldier marches angrily in comforting lockstep, knowing his comrades share the same tears. In burning cities and rubbled bridges manifest the nightmares of these doomed souls. In their looking-glass world, ruin meant life and life meant ruin. "Our food is fear and blood our water. Leave no bridge standing and let all things serve war." But the bridge builder knew only his art. "I was put here to build bridges, so build them I will. How do these destroyers expect to live??"
His bridges lived and breathed, born as children of his imagination. But how can one give birth only to hand the baby over to the executioner? Despair's poison pen pierced his heart, laughing at the futility of his efforts. The bridge builder looked to the sky, "What matter Heaven when it's hell on earth?" Each subsequent death of his children chipped his heart till none was left. So he settled on the edge of mountain cliff to stare at "God's paintings in the skies", the one thing the foul fingers of man could not stain.
The forces of Yin and Yang balanced in contention in the crumpled figure overlooking nature's beauty. The desire to build equated the desire to avoid pain. His hands were stilled, handcuffing the power of life within them. But it's true, where there's life there's hope. A young girl knowing nothing of the bridge builder's life or the ways of the world finally brought a question of healing: "Hey, mister, are you OK? Can I do anything?"
"No, I'm not OK. And no one can change the world. There's no point to love destroyed."
"Can I love you anyway?" she hoped.
Yin and Yang snapped and the wheels of life turned once more. For seven days and seven nights the bridge builder cried streaming tears as dreams of life breathed into him. The bridges were not his to despair, he had not authored their design, he'd simply been reading blueprints from God. Let the bridge's Author deal with its destroyers. Be happy to be the Author's instrument of creation, to be the pen in God's hand. Who would not love such a thing?
"Yes," was the answer. "Yes you may love me. And I have more ideas than ever before. I'll make bridge builders of you all! Just wait till you see what it's like!"
News of the bridge builder's stirring rushed through the countryside like water bursting from a dam. Not only would new bridges be built, but a nation of bridge builders they would be! To new heights of living they'd soar, an everlasting change. But while the villagers rejoiced, it did not excuse their bad hearts and the evil men they put in charge of their villages. The village elders knew no end to their wailing dismay at the news they would no longer control the bridges and sent word to the mindless men of war.
A lone assassin was sent to do the job, giving the villagers an easy fish to fry, so all may point and say, "See? The blood is on his hands alone." The light of the bridge builder was extinguished, leaving the world a safe place for those who do deeds in the dark - until time comes when the darkness consumes them and they are no more.
CODA: Decades later, the land lay in ruins and the despair of no bridges warped into an acceptable insanity. A little girl asked, "Where have all the bridge builders gone?" A guilty silence answered her, except for the first little girl who was now a woman. "The answer to that is in our hearts."
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This is for all the bridge builders we killed:
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