Quiet on the Bridge
He would read through yesterday’s newspaper and then fold the pages into little boats to drop into the water below, as if each one represented the world’s troubles sailing out of view, and then he would turn and walk slowly, the heels of his leather shoes striking the cobblestones in the silence of sleeplessness. It was the same each morning as the bells tolled four and the mist lay across the water. Now and then he would find another sleepless chum to spend his half hour with before walking back to the flat, but only now and then, and he never did see them again. He wouldn’t be surprised if they preferred the solitary stillness of the river to his stiff company. It was not the expected thing to find a well dressed young man with glassy eyes dropping paper boats in the water at four in the morning, but they supposed he had a broken heart; he was most likely one of those disconsolate boys whose worlds are crumbling but who will soon find the courage to build them up again, and are better left alone. You might think that, to see him there.