This is a story that Sharon wrote in 1973 that figures in how we met.
Twilight. I like to go walking then. To think. To reflect. To imagine. To see things in a different light.
Twilight. The difference between day and night. The middle of the coin, so to speak. No heads, no tails. No blacks, no whites. No absolutes. Only grays. And if day is living and knowing, night dying and asking, what is twilight? What sort of world lies between the question and the answer?
Twilight. Time’s misguided child who blends right with wrong, reason with dreams, suspension with confusion. And if angels dance with demons, what then of humanity? Or am I forgetting myself?
Twilight. Only a crossing-over. A bridge. A bridge to connect two shores. But what does twilight cross over? And if the bridge ever breaks?
*****
Fourteen. Through the August heat I could feel the animal strength straining in my thighs as I walked. My youth flowed through my veins like fresh river water. But I was taking my time about coming into manhood. I was coming into my prime and proud of it, but every moment was to be savored and tasted like the sweat that collected on my upper lip. I cared nothing about caution and wasted no time pondering life’s secrets. Pain was proof enough of my existence, I had yet to learn of pleasure. To work until my muscles ached in flames, to run and climb until my lungs would burst, to feel the blood throbbing in my temples until I could only hear the noises of life within. And then I’d forget the dreams. Dreams where I wouldn’t bleed after cutting myself. Only dead men don’t bleed. Sweating and shaking I’d light a candle. Frantically I’d dig my jack-knife out of my pockets and cut the tip of my finger. Then I’d wait. It seemed hours before the blood would start to gently trickle out. Until relief would wash over me. That it was only a nightmare, after all.
My temples were throbbing now. Only a fence separated me and the bull. Big and powerful. But what good is all that power if you couldn’t catch me? Or Freddy? And I grinned at my friend. The same thoughts flashed back in his smile. We were the Three Musketeers minus one. Talking to him was like talking to myself. If you have a friend like that you’ll understand.
After dinner and finishing up our chores we’d come out to play with the bull. The August heat was still here and the only sign that the day was drawing to a close was the appearance of fireflies and that there was no longer any need to squint. Started heading back by way of the river. Really it’s more of a stream, except when it comes close to flooding in the late spring. Crickets had taken up their song in the grass and the day was settling down. We tried our luck at skipping some stones off of the water. But somehow we had lost our touch tonight, so we started heading home, this time with a little more determination. We’d gone about a hundred yards downstream and the air began to get, well, to get peculiar. Tornado weather. With all of the emptiness and the longing. But there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Choking silence. No crickets. Or the water’s gently lapping on the rocks. Even my own sounds stopped. The river. There was no movement, no heedless flowing. It was as if someone had taken a picture of the scene and we were standing in it. I don’t really remember what happened after that. I remember moving. Or at least feeling myself moving. And the picture, well, it was blurring. As if someone had thrown water on a painting and the colors all began to run together.
Then the colors started to have some sort of reason again and we found ourselves standing in a one room shack. And the old man. I’ve never seen anyone look that old and that was still living before. He reminds me of the picture with an old man holding a scythe on the cover of an almanac up in the attic. Yet there was a characteristic unstiffness about him. As if he had the stuff needed to jump over fences.
“The bridge broke.” And he raised himself up on one arm off of the cot that he’d been lying on.
“What?”
“About every twenty-five years this happens. The bridge breaks and throws reality out of kilter for a little while. No need to worry, though. It rights itself in the end. Least as far as I’ve been able to tell.”
“What bridge?”
“Twilight, boy. Twilight.”
Freddy and I just stared at each other. Was he mad? And if he wasn’t…well, what was going on?”
“Sir? Ah,…could you tell me where this shack is? I don’t remember seeing it around before.”
“Course you wouldn’t have seen it. It’s under the bridge.”
Here we go again. I was beginning to wonder if anything was ever going to make sense again.
“I’m afraid that we don’t quite follow you, sir.”
The old man sadly shook his head and swinging his feet off of the cot, sat up and began to explain.
“Twilight. It’s the crossing-over between the day and the night. It’s a bridge that time crosses over. Well, like a bridge, every now and then it gets, well, a loose plank, and time falls through. Not a break in time, you understand, but a break in the bridge. Quite a difference, you know.”
This time Freddy stirred. “I can’t rightly say that I knew any of those things. But I guess that means that we fell through with time. Why nobody else?”
“Well, there’s a lot of different times. Yours and your friends, mine. Just some of it falls through, depending exactly where the bridge breaks and how big the break is.”
What could we say but “Oh”. We’d found a hole in the bridge. And fell through. That’s just great.
“It’s not really all that bad. Two got in. Two can get out again.”
And the old man started to go for a rifle leaning up against the wall. But it was as if Freddy second guessed him, and he beat him to it. No sooner had he faced the gun to the old man then it went off. I never saw him pull the trigger. Oh God, was there blood. But it was coming from Freddy. I’ll never forget that look on his face. It was as if he was surprised over some practical joke. And he started laughing and spitting blood. Repeating over and over, I should have known, I should have known. The old man was up and moving. He was trying to get me to move, but I just kept watching Freddy laying there and dying. Wondering why he was the one bleeding.
“Come on, the boy is dying. There’s nothing you can do for him.”
“Jimmy…Jimmy…” And with that, my friend closed his eyes.
I was moving again. I had lost all sense of time and space. Darkness. Then familiar outlines began to assert themselves on my mind. Next to me stood the old man. Next to me stood…stood…
“You’re not Freddy, you’re the old man!”
Freddy cocked his head to one side and just looked at me through the moonlight.
“You killed Freddy. I’m going to tell his folks!”
“Tell them what, Jimmy?”
“That you’re not Freddy!” But he was Freddy! “And about the bridge breaking!”
“What bridge, there isn’t one within ten miles!?” And his expression was one of those reserved for small children or the mentally insane. And on that warm and muggy August night I suddenly felt very cold.
At home that night, I laid down on my bed with a tiredness belonging more to a man than to a boy. I had lost my friend or I had lost my mind. Or both.
I stopped seeing Freddy after that night. Because if he wasn’t Freddy, well, he just wasn’t Freddy. And if he really was, why had he acted like he did that night?
Thirty-nine. Through the August heat I can feel myself straining to take steps that are certain. Manhood has started to become a burden. I’ve given up pondering life’s secrets, for I always end up wondering about what happened a long time ago. With a certain sadness, I’ve given up my twilight wanderings. For the time draws near for the bridge to break again. What’s to be said? That I’ve become fearful of a dream’s shadow? But if it wasn’t a dream….then the bridge will soon break again. For somebody….
*****
Twilight. I like to go walking then. To think. To reflect. To imagine. To see things in a different light.
Twilight. When lights can be heard and colors have smells. The time when perhaps the improbable becomes the probable. The time, when perhaps, the lion will lie down with the lamb.
Twilight. Ah,….but I forget myself.
Musings of a Restless Mind 