December 31st, 2016

Kinsky, California, USA

…All’s Right with the World.

“Hey, Cole. This is Kat. I know you didn’t respond yet to my text about the New Year’s Party at Aaron’s place… so I just wanted to call ya about it. It’s just gonna be us, the usuals… plus we considered inviting Rus too. I don’t know if Aaron actually ended up doing it. Anyway, if you wanna come, let me know and Luke and I can come pick you up. Or if you just wanna show up, that’s cool too. I mean, we know you, so… Anyway, yeah. 8 o’clock at Aaron’s. And Cole… if you need anything, let me know, okay? Bye-bye.”

The phone beeped, and the voicemail ended. Cole sat alone in his bedroom. The sun was out but the blinds were closed and the room dark. It was quiet, save for the muffled sound of the TV Marion was watching in the other room.

He was finished with his writing. The note cards were stuffed inside the chest, and he flipped the latch lock such that it shut tightly closed. 

He stood up, grabbing the hoodie off the side of his bed. Putting the toy chest under his arm he opened the door, and walked down the stairs.

“You going somewhere?” Marion asked as Cole’s hand reached the front door.  

“Yeah.”

“When’ll you be back?”

Cole stalled, thinking of what to say. “Well… uh… I…”

Marion gave a dismissive wave. “It’s fine. The reason I ask is, I want to have an early dinner… because, you know, the thing with Carol. But you can just text me when you’re close to coming home, okay?”

“Okay.”

He turned around and opened the door.

“And Cole-”

Marion’s voice stopped him from leaving. He turned his head back towards her.

“…Everything alright?”

Cole tried his best to smile, but he couldn’t. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

Marion didn’t believe him, but she let him go anyway. He left the house and walked towards the car outside. 

…

Cole’s first stop was the forest by the lake. He had an approximate idea of where he wanted to go, but he hadn’t been there in a very long time. He parked the car off the side of the road near a dirt-ridden path, and picked the chest up from the passenger seat. He got out, and began walking.

For the most part, the forest looked the same everywhere he went. It was all a natural cacophony of trees, rocks, debris, and bush. At some points he walked by places he thought he might recognize, from distant past, but the memory was too vague to ever confirm.

Fortunately, he got lucky. After thirty minutes of walking around the curve of the lake, he found what he was looking for.

In the middle of a small clearing was a single tree, the fragments of an old and decayed treehouse resting near its peak. Over the course of almost a decade rain had worn down its structural integrity, and burst forth a hole in its floorboards. Cole walked over to it, placing his hand inside the hole and feeling around. He felt something – hard plastic, shaped distinctly – and pulled it out. It was an old Superman figure, one which he had lost long ago. The sun’s rays had now made its exoskeleton weak, and its paint faded, but he recognized it all the same. He smiled dimly, and placed it back where it was. Then, from under his shoulder, he took the chest and placed it inside the hole, opposite to where he had found the figure.

From there he was able to retrace his steps back to the car, and get back inside. There was only one other place he wanted to go now.

…

Cole hadn’t gone back to the Ednas Bridge since Isaac had shown him. But it had always filled a void in his mind. In the weeks passing he had researched it enough to know its formal name, its history, and the manner of its construction. And the strangest thing to him, across all that time, is that he never knew why. He didn’t understand his own fixation on the bridge, or why he was always thinking about it. But now he did.

He braked the car slowly, carefully, until it came to a gentle stop near the bridge railing. He got out of the driver’s seat and walked over to the sidewalk.

Looking down, the lake and its surroundings creates a vertigo-inducing effect which makes the whole bridge feel much taller than it really is. While the bridge is only around four stories-worth of space away from the water, it feels more like standing atop a fifty-floor skyscraper.

Cole, looking down, felt himself stuck in yet another trance. He was taken out of it, however, when he heard another car approaching. He backed off from the railing, turning to see an indiscriminate red car drive up, and park nearby. He did not recognize it. From the driver’s seat, a man came out – he had dark skin, though Cole could not tell his exact ethnicity. He was slightly overweight, and wore a dark blue polo with a pair of shorts. He took his time to look down both sides of the street, then approached the boy.

“Hey there, son,” he spoke, well-meaning, without consequence. “How are you doing today?”

The chance encounter had unnerved Cole. “I’m… I’m doing alright.”

The man looked up to the sky, and smiled. “It’s a wonderful day today, isn’t it?”

The teen looked up with him. The man was right – it was a clear day today, and the sky was a brilliant shade of blue. There was a gust of wind, but nothing too strong. The birds in the trees chirped as if it were any other day.

“Yeah,” Cole said, “I guess it is.”

The man looked back down to Earth. He took a few more steps closer.

“Now, son, I don’t know why you’re here. I don’t know you, and I don’t know why you chose to stop at this bridge here, and look at it the way you do. And honestly, I’m perfectly fine with not knowing the answer to any of those things, if you choose not to tell me. But… I wanted to tell you something. A quote that I always keep in the back of my mind. It’s Philippians 11:20 – I’m not sure if you’ve read the Bible, perhaps you have and know the quote. But allow me to at least remind you of it. It goes… ‘When my body fails me, or my mind shrouds itself in doubt and sin, I free myself by knowing that my God is in His Heaven, and all is right with the world.”

Cole froze. The quote stirred something within him, though not what the stranger had intended. He stood, mouth agape, unable to respond. The good Samaritan, seeing there was nothing else he could do, simply nodded.

“I hope you live in peace, son.” Those were the last words the man spoke.

The man got back in the car and drove off, all the while Cole remained cemented in that position. Eventually he broke out of it – coughing as he tasted the air again – and turned back to the lake under Ednas. 

He walked back to the railing, and stared down into the water with vigorous intensity. He took hold of the rail and grasped it tightly, as if he could break the metal itself, but all he did was hurt the joints in his hands. So he took his grip off and instead did what he had always intended to do, mantling over the railing and holding himself up against the other side. He stopped himself again there, this time reaching into his pocket to take out his worn leather wallet. He reached inside to grab something, but in his distressed fumbling he nearly lost his balance, and the wallet fell out of his hands and down into the water below. But that was alright, because he was able to take out what he was looking for.

The picture of that woman. That woman whom he knew so little about, yet had an undying devotion to. The one whom he dreamed about, night after night, ever since he was little. That woman, Mrs. Mulaney, his mother – a woman whom he could only understand as a puzzle, picking up the pieces, the memories told through others, and get some semblance of the full picture. The image, an old photo, had been worn down from his constant anxious rubbing. The woman’s face could barely be made out now – but Cole’s imagination filled in the blanks.

He stared at that image, caressing it gently, for what seemed like an eternity and more. He had scarcely even noticed the tears begin to swell in his eyes, how they fell under their own weight and dripped off his cheek, narrowly missing the small square photograph in the boy’s hand. Eventually he sucked up a deep breath, and closed his eyes. His voice drew down to a whisper.

“I’m sorry. I hope I can see you again.”

His grip on the picture faded, and faded still. Eventually he held it so lightly that a gust of wind pushed it out from between the tips of his fingers, and it glided gently, off into the distance, never to be seen by anybody ever again.

Cole felt a strange sensation. It was nothing he had ever felt before. It was the willingness to let go.

His body leaned forward, and released his grip from the railing. His body fell, and fell, and fell, until it hit the surface of the lake. But it wasn’t violent, or loud, or harsh. He glided, just like the photo. And it was peaceful.