Weekly #4
1,781 words

Part 1
▪────

Exposition: A bridge was made by the people many centuries before, a bridge of limestone that arched over the river. However, by causes unknown (to the reader), the bridge collapsed and wasn't remade for many years. Our protagonist, Adair, is fascinated with finding out how the bridge collapsed, and how many people fell into the river with it.

Rising Action: Adair asks his mother about his father, stating that “he fell in, didn't he?” His mother does not give him a clear, straightforward answer, and seems distressed by the topic. She refers to his father's home, and how this world was not it. Adair tries to communicate with his mother, but nothing works.

Climax: Adair is helping to build the bridge again and brings this news home to his mother. She isn't pleased and tells him not to cross when it is completed. Adair gets angry and insists that she is only acting this way because of his father's death, which he claims she was not there to witness. She says that the bridge is cursed. The argument is not resolved, and instead ends in silence.

Falling Action: Adair continues building the bridge, and when the day comes to cross it, he is one of the first. He thinks of his mother as he walks and is lulled into a false sense of contentment and bliss. He doesn't hear the overhead wire snapping and falling, and the bridge starting to burn. The bridge collapses again, and he falls with it.

Resolution: He wakes to see his mother looking over him, her demeanour distressed. He apologises to her and says he is not going anywhere, his home is with her. She laughs with relief and says that they will go home.

The rhyme ends by telling the woman she can go home now.

- 319 words

> ingredients used for the following parts:
flashback, new pov, introduce a symbol, new conflict arises, foreshadowing

Story (parts 2, 3 & 4)
▪────

oh, your bridge is falling down,
falling down,
falling down.

—

Snow held us captive, our breaths shuddering in the winter air.

—

As children, they asked about the bridge.

Its limestone pathway arching over the river, a trail for generations of the past. They asked about its lore, whether drinking the water below would steal a man's soul, or if you crossed it at night, would the shadows swallow you whole?

The adults laughed at these questions, but sorrow lingered in their eyes just a little too long.

Their gaze would drift off to the setting sun, dying red and yellows streaking the horizon where a bridge once stood. Where its arches once bowed and light filtered through, so that the sun was reduced to a golden spark in the distance.

Now the light blinded them, setting the world aflame.

Adair didn't care so much about the bridge's lore; he was fascinated with something else.

How did the bridge collapse, and how many fell with it?

—

Winter froze our feet, and we walked along a path of ice.

—

“Papa fell in, didn't he?”

Adair watched his mother turn to stone before his eyes — her posture rigid, her eyes alert.

She bent over the sink again, scrubbing the pan in her hand. She did not look at him. “He fell where?”

Adair gently took the pan from between her clutched fingers, and continued washing it. “Papa fell in the river. When the bridge collapsed.”

The boy phrased it as a declaration — not a question needing confirmation, but a statement. A statement that took the form of a blunt knife, twisting in his mother's abdomen.

She swallowed. Her knuckles whitened against the oak brown of the countertop, fingers gripping wood.

Pain flashed in her eyes, stifled agony spelt out across her face, before the expression hardened again. The woman was stone once more.

Her cold gaze fixed on the steady stream of water falling from the tap. She made no move to close it.

“Your Papa's time came to go. He… He's home now.”

A match lit in Adair's chest.

“But this is his home,” he said, resentment lacing his words. "We are his home."

She shook her head.

Silence gripped the air. Moments stretched for an eternity between them.

Silence, but for the thump of their heartbeats and the running of water. Silence, but for all the words they wished they could say.

Adair's mother broke it first.

“This was a home that failed your Papa, that didn't keep him safe.”

Her voice shook, the shudder of someone at the edge, looking down.

At the edge of this stilted normality, this pretence of everything is fine, don't worry, of Papa passed away, it's not important how. This act that had spanned his whole life, since the day his father died.

A sob broke through when she murmured, “A home that let him fall.”

Adair left his mother with her demons, the tap still running.

—

Our hearts stopped when we heard it. The crack, crack, cracking.

—

Dying sunlight bathed the river in shades of fire, setting its waves aflame.

Adair squinted against the glare, rubbing muddied hands against his trousers and wiping sweat from his brow. His muscles strained from a hard day's work, grit in his nails and a satisfied glint in his eye.

By the time he returned home, the river had swallowed up the sun.

“Mama!”

Footsteps sounded against the stairs as his mother descended, and Adair greeted her with a beaming grin.

She returned the expression with a surprised smile, fixing the sleeves of her gown. “What is it?”

“We're rebuilding the bridge,” Adair announced, eyes bright. “We've finished half already, and it's been decided that I will be one of the first to cross when it's completed.”

The woman studied his face — the light in his gaze, the sweat still layering his brow. Her silence spoke multitudes, and Adair's heart dropped to his stomach.

She looked at him, saying nothing as the seconds ticked by.

Again, moments stretched for an eternity. Again, silence gripped the air.

This time Adair broke it. “Ma…”

“I love you, my dear,” his mother whispered, pain glazing her eyes. “But I cannot let you do that.”

Again, the match lit in his chest. Rage coiled Adair's heart like a barbed wire — his glare accusatory, his words even more so.

"First, you refuse to tell me the truth about what happened to my father — that he died when the bridge collapsed. Then, when we can finally rebuild it and I am able to cross it just like you and Papa once did, you forbid me?"

A spark of anger flared in his mother's gaze as she rose up to his height, her eyes flashing, warning him to mind his mouth.

He didn't.

“Just because you're afraid that what happened to Papa will—”

“Don't you dare!”

The world stilled.

His mother had never truly raised her voice at him, and now he understood why.

She was a woman of stone no longer, suppressed emotions streaking her face, burning beyond her irises.

A warrior stood in her place, grief scarring her expression, remnants of the pain that had deadened her heart.

“That bridge is cursed. You were not there when your father died.”

“Neither were you!” Adair spat.

This time, he didn't expect the silence.

A second passed. Two.

It held him in a chokehold. He couldn't breathe. Fear throbbed in his chest.

Like a brick wall had risen between them, his mother closed off.

The fire in her eyes died. The emotions fell from her face as if they had never been there to begin with, a mask peeling back to reveal the statue beneath.

She tugged her sleeves once more, and left her son choking on the silence.

—

I was there when he died.

When the foundations of the bridge froze and cracked.

When it collapsed, and he fell with it.

—

Two weeks later, the bridge was completed.

Two weeks later, Adair and his mother still hadn't spoken.

He thought of her then, imagined the pride in her smile as he stepped onto the bridge, its limestone pathway arching over the river.

As the light filtered through and the world no longer burned, he thought of his mother.

Her words lingered in his mind, “The bridge is cursed.” A warning—

“Adair! Are you ready?” called one of his friends.

Adair beamed, lips pulling into a grin that even the sun could not rival. “Of course!”

Anticipation surged behind his ribcage, pulsed through his veins. His heart pounded to the beat of his footsteps.

This is it.

With every step across that bridge, the lure of the unknown pulled him along.

Despite the sting of his mother's anger, and the simmering remnants of his own indignation, his burdens lifted as he walked. Contentment swelled in his chest, and he fell into a trance of pure bliss.

So deep, in fact, that Adair didn't hear the searing of an overhead wire, or the contact when it hit the ground.

He didn't smell the singe of smoke as a rope caught fire.

He didn't feel the crumble of limestone beneath his feet.

He didn't hear the screams of “The bridge is burning!”

He thought of his mother's smile just as the world went up in flames, and he fell into darkness.

—

I see my son the same way I saw my husband.

Falling. Dying.

—

oh, your bridge is burning down,
burning down,
burning down.

“Adair—!”

He heard the voice as if from very far away. A voice that comforted him, pulled him into an embrace.

A voice that told him everything is fine, you'll be alright.

A voice that made him open his eyes and look up into his mother's face.

Her ash-singed hair and smoke-stained skin. The mask of stone peeled back, raw emotion scrawled across her flushed cheeks. Tears warring with the fire in her eyes.

“Mama…” he sighed.

A sob lodged in the back of her throat. “Adair, my dear.”

He looked at her eyes, making sure she saw the sincerity in his. “I'm sorry, Mama, for everything.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about. I am your mother—I will love you, always,” she said, a tear rolling down her soot-stained cheek.

“Don't worry about me, Mama.” Smoke burned his eyes as he reached for his mother's hand, murmuring, “My home is with you.”

Her relief came out in a stifled gasp, tears swimming in her eyes as she laughed and said,

“Then we'll go home.”

Adair closed his eyes to the sight of his mother's smile, and the thought of home.

—

you can go home now,
my fair lady.

1,462 words
thanks so much to tilly for her critique <3