The Bridge

The A57 crosses the Manchester Ship Canal on a bridge that has railings painted green and a sign that says BRIDGE AHEAD and a patch of tarmac at the apex where the surface has been patched so many times it looks like a quilt.

A young man stands at the railings at 1 AM. He is nineteen or twenty. He has a hoodie and a phone and nothing else. The phone is in his pocket. He is not using it. He is looking at the canal.

The canal is black at this hour. Not reflective. Not romantic. Black the way a puddle is black on a road that doesn't get much traffic. The kind of black that doesn't give anything back.

He is not going to jump. He comes here sometimes. Three or four times a month. He walks from the housing estate on the other side of the A57, crosses the bridge, stands at the railings for ten or fifteen minutes, and walks back. He doesn't know why he comes here specifically. The canal doesn't look back. That's the whole point.

The canal doesn't look back.

Everything else looks back. His mum looks back. His phone looks back. His boss looks back. The mirror in the bathroom looks back. The future he's supposed to be building looks back. The canal just sits there. Black. Flat. Not interested.

He puts his hands on the railings. The railings are cold and the green paint is chipped where thousands of other hands have rested. He doesn't think about the other hands. He thinks about nothing. That's the point. Ten or fifteen minutes of nothing. Not meditation. Not peace. Just nothing. The canal doesn't look back and for ten minutes neither does he.

A car goes over the bridge. A blue Vauxhall Corsa. It doesn't slow down. He doesn't look at it. The car goes towards the McDonald's half a mile down the road. The young man doesn't know about the man in the Corsa. The man in the Corsa doesn't know about the young man on the bridge. They share a road and a night and nothing else.

The wind comes off the canal. It smells like water and rust and the faintest trace of diesel. The young man's hoodie isn't warm enough. He doesn't leave. The cold is part of it. The cold reminds him he's standing somewhere real. The canal is real. The railings are real. The cold is real. The nothing is real.

He stands for twelve minutes. He doesn't count. It's just what it takes. Twelve minutes of a black canal that doesn't look back, and then the nothing is full enough to carry him home.

He walks back across the bridge. His hands leave the railings. The railings stay cold. The canal stays black. The sign says BRIDGE AHEAD to no one. The patched tarmac holds no weight.

Tomorrow he might come back. Tomorrow he might not. The canal doesn't care. The canal doesn't look back. That's the whole point. That's the only point. The canal doesn't look back and for twelve minutes neither does he.