| The Bridge by Fabrice Schomberg A long, long time ago an old man met an older man who told him that a secret bridge had existed since before he had been born, and whoever crossed it never came back. Now that the older man was near to death, he wanted to tell the old man the whereabouts of this bridge and why no one ever came back. He pointed in the direction of an inaccessible mountain, and explained that no one ever returned because the bridge led to a world of bliss, the one he was, of course, waiting to arrive at upon his death. He was the bridge keeper, he said, and was to be the last across, but his frail state of being did not allow him to demolish the bridge at the right time as indicated by the divine. He therefore asked the old man to do it, and with that request the older man passed away. The old man buried the older man and took this last request to heart. He prepared himself and set off for the journey to the inaccessible mountain where the bridge lay. On the way his curiosity arose as to what was on the other side of this bridge. When he finally found the bridge, the temptation was too big and he decided to cross it, promising himself that he'd come back. As the old man ventured across the bridge, a mist gathered around him and just as the older man had told him,on the other side, he found a world of bliss with the presence of many, as well as that of the older man. "What are you doing here?" said the older man. "It is not your time yet and you were supposed to demolish the bridge, not cross it." "I could not help myself," said the old man, "the temptation was too great." "Well it's too late now, you can't go back," said the older man. "But I promised myself I would," retorted the old man. "Well you can try. No one has managed to do so before, but you seem very determined," said the older man. "A promise is a promise," said the old man, "and I promised to demolish the bridge." The old man began his return journey but the weather had changed and it wasn't as before. It was windy and the bridge, unstable; there was a continuous storm, rain and darkness - enough to make him lose direction. But amid the difficulties, he carried on walking straight and, years later, finally reached the other side, yet now too as an older man. He started to demolish the bridge piece by piece until his mission was complete. The, now older, man became frail and like his predecessor was about to give up his life to the great divine who had created him, when the older man appeared to him in a dream saying, "You have completed your task and now you are ready to cross naturally to the other side."
The now older frail man did not wake up from his dream and no one was there to bury him.
edited by Janet Cartlidge www.sketchedworlds.com/stories copyright © 2014 Fabrice Schomberg | 
