Short Stories

Yearly at Southfork Crossing

Written by Yvonne Urra-Bazain for the 2022 La Viness Short Story Writing Contest, Draw Bridge

In faint light, Susie prepared her lap easel to draw the bridge backlit by approaching dawn. Astronomical twilight, Liam taught her, was the time of day when the perceived center of the sun measured 18 degrees below the horizon. With the sun’s ascent, the sky gradually lightened until its expanse was unmistakably lit.

She watched the outline of the bridge gain clarity, while the structure remained robed by night. Susie sketched the underbelly of Southfork Crossing where shades were deep and lingering. She graced graphite across the page where the umbra belonged as she darted her eyes between paper and shadow, capturing the relative light.

“Dawn causes perception to change with each circuit of glances,” she quoted aloud and smiled proudly for her memory. Remembrance is an elixir that will one day run dry.

Then, she noticed a lump of shadow sketched on her paper. Susie gazed back at the bridge as she sought her point of error. Under the curve of steel and wood, there appeared to be a lump. While she watched, it moved.

She squinted, targeting her eyes onto the moving darkness and holding breath as if reality required stillness. Undocumented moments of light passed as she stared in anticipation, losing, every second, irreplaceable points of brilliance. The darkness moved again. Without further consideration, she stumbled toward the shade, wanting to understand what she failed to see over two years of observation.

Susie descended the slope to reach the underside of the footbridge. Southfork Crossing was a stitch connecting two pieces of broken land with a 10 foot dry gully between. The bridge was wide and cast under the canopy of trees.

She gained momentum scuttling down the eased gully and startled in front of what looked like a blanketed body, barely perceivable in this twilight hour. Susie held her hand against her mouth to trap a gasp from escaping. She stepped with caution, while fear compelled her. Crunched leaves underfoot interrupted the quiet. She winced at her indiscretion.

The blanket rolled to life to her equal relief and tension, then croaked, “I’d say good morning, though by the dark of things, I doubt morning has come, and it doesn’t feel good.”

The shadows cast an image of an older man, perhaps bearded. She could hardly see him, except for hazel eyes which greedily collected ambient light. She was as a deer, startled in the unexpected brightness.

“Cat’s got your tongue?” he asked.

“Sorry?” Susie’s words fumbled out.

“Miss, do you need help?”

By default and without hesitation Susie replied, "No. I am fine."

She sighed then continued, "Actually, I saw your shape and I worried…”

“That I was dead? Or that I was here?” His words were brusque.

She paused, her brows furrowed under the weight of his implication.

“I was worried you’d need help and I didn’t know which option I’d find,” she corrected.

The man snorted, “Sounds like curiosity and a touch of dangerous living.”

He was right. Her behavior was rash and, well, unusual.

She softened and said, “I’m sorry for waking you. I’m glad to know you’re alive and … there’s a cafe about a mile’s walk. Would you be interested in joining me for some coffee and breakfast? It’s the least I could do after waking you.”

“Not sure how I should take that, ma’am, you offering me the least of something as a kindness,” he quipped.

She imagined a smirk on his face. Susie wondered if everything she said was casual, unthinking, and a topic of jest.

The man’s voice punctured her ponderance. “Ma’am, this is my place of relative quiet; no one has confronted me here, well, exceptin’ today. I have gone on this long without lesser kindnesses before.”

This long? Had he always been here, living under the bridge?

Susie needed to know. “May I ask, how long have you been here?”

“Well, ma’am, if you tell me the year, I might be able to answer truly,” he said.

“2022… sir” she said, mirroring the respect he bestowed her.

“2022. I live and breathe,” he exhaled aloud.

“How long has it been for you? Do you not go into town? How do you live?” Susie’s words raced out.

Light highlighted a shift at the corner of his mouth. His silhouette turned and said, “Ma’am, with all due respect, I have lost track of what you are askin’.”

“Can you tell I’ve not had my coffee yet?” She batted away her words with her hand.

“Suppose that’s why you brought up the coffee shop? Projection,” he claimed.

Susie puckered her lips to one side. Was she verbally assaulted or was she understood? She stared and blinked in response.

“Hate to be rude, ma’am, but if you’ll excuse me, I believe I had a few more hours of rest left in me for the time being,” he said.

She replied, “Of course. I am sorry to have bothered you.”

“Ain’t no bother.” His gruff voice muffled as he turned back into the blanketed shadow.

“I would like to come back, when you’re awake… to talk.” Susie said.

The lump replied, “Consider yourself invited.”

She turned. Her face held a question that burrowed into the lines of her forehead. Her knees complained as she hiked the slope to return to her drawing spot. Up was not the same as down. At 51, her body surprised her with new immobility every chance it could.

Her supplies were just as she left them. It was the kind of small town where people greeted each other by name, but everyone kept to themselves unless help was needed. She looked toward the bridge. She couldn’t continue drawing. The light was fully known. She would need to try again tomorrow. Daylight was her currency and there was one place she could think to spend it.

Susie packed her drawing supplies into the carrying case and walked the familiar, leaf-carpeted route. She last entered the coffee shop two years ago. She imagined the emerald green door with the glinting copper bell that jangled when pulled ajar. She remembered the clink of cups and low conversations, the sound of leisure productivity welcomed her.

She envisioned Liam in the usual leather club chair centered in the cafe. It was like their Saturday morning again. They would talk and laugh for hours, sipping on various brews, and choosing the daily special from the bakery case. Other times, they shared collective silence, watching passerbys through the glass windows, as the bell heralded the entry and exit of patrons.

When she arrived, the door to their Oz was no longer emerald. It was charcoal. The shop relinquished its name. There were new faces behind the windows.

Perhaps, she knew this would happen. How could their place exist without him? She blinked and let the familiar droplets crawl across her cheekbones. She wiped them aside, inhaled, and walked in, alone.

-- -- -- -- --

When the sun was 45 degrees above the horizon looking east, Susie prepared to leave. She struggled to balance herself with a white paper bag in one hand. Her elbow pinched the drawing case to her side and she gripped a cup carrier with two opaque containers in the other hand. The barista smiled and held the door open for her. Susie spied a scratch of green under the barista’s hand and smiled in return.

Even in the morning light, Susie could hardly distinguish the man she met from the shades. She spoke towards him, her voice carrying over the gully. “I have coffee and breakfast to share should you choose to accept.”

She shifted her weight backwards as she clomped down the eased slope, and reached the bridge triumphantly, without falling on her face or losing her cargo.

He was awake, and placed a worn, folded quilt to his side.

“I accept, seein’ as you went to the trouble,” he greeted.

Susie sat on the ground across from him. She offered him the pulp carrier and centered the paper bag between them.

“Hot coffee, dark roast, light cream, two sugars in this one,” she pointed to the graffitied cup. “The other is medium roast, black. Take your pick. There’s also bagels with cream cheese and blueberry scones.”

The man plucked the black coffee from the carrier and used a paper napkin to retrieve a bagel from the bag. He closed his eyes as he sipped the roasted brew.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said. “I am Gabe. Pleasure havin’ breakfast with you.”

She smiled. “Susie, and I am the one who needs to thank you.”

Gabe raised an eyebrow at Susie and asked, "Ma’am?”

“I had…abandoned the idea of returning to the coffee shop. There's a new one there now. It did me some good to be there, to see how life moves forward, yet memories remain.”

Susie sipped her coffee and looked down toward the scone. “Beyond bringing breakfast, I came here with a burning question. How long have you been living here? I’ve been adding to drawings of the crossing for years and had not noticed you.”

Gabe remarked, “Being an artist, you’re observant.”

Susie laughed. “I am not the artist, although I couldn't understand how I could have missed you.”

Gabe’s interest was piqued. “Not the artist? That begs a question.”

The next words came cathartically to Susie. “Liam. He was fascinating. He had this concept for a 10-year art piece of layering shades. He scheduled the same four weeks of the year to work on 10 drawings: a decade of seasonal light.

Gabe nodded. "You're finishing the bridges." It was an announcement, not a question.

"Liam…" Susie trailed.

She reached for her case and rifled through loose drawings, counting and thumbing the corners until she could find the nearly complete bridge series. She showed Gabe the first. "He might have drawn you, all these seasons."

She laid Liam's first drawing in front of Gabe and pointed out the faint lump of shade, then arranged the sequential sketches. The lump appeared to grovel, then twist and turn, until it evolved to look like a sleeping man. When they were displayed in sequence, there was movement to the shadow under the bridge: a story of writhing and becoming.

"Was this you? Did you ever see… Did he ever see you?" Her words were tender yet eager.

Gabe bit into his bagel and chewed what felt like a long time to Susie, as he looked through all the drawings she had brought to show him.

"I reckon' Liam was wise," Gabe said. "These are more than a bridge."

Susie was surprised to see Gabe's hazel turn glassy. Her eyes filled with empathy and heartache and gratitude.

Recalling the quilt, she asked, "Gabe, why are you here?"

He took a sip of coffee and spoke to the ground, "My grief lives here and I can not bear to part with it."

Silence hung between them until Susie replied, “I am here with you.”

They sat together, quietly sipping their coffee, communing with unspoken understanding.

-- -- -- -- --

The next morning, Susie returned to her drawing spot to sketch the bridge at the hour Liam had scheduled. She paid special attention to the movement of her friend beneath who gave the drawings a story greater than that of the interplay of light and dark. He was a vital layer. Susie completed what she could for the hour and packed up her drawing case.

She looked toward the sun that emerged fully from the horizon and spoke aloud, “I will continue what you began.”

Susie returned to the bridge with breakfast from her new coffee shop, a ritual she hoped to continue through the seasons at Southfork Crossing. She offered her friend Gabe his choice of two different coffees and baked goods. Sometimes they talked for hours, understanding more about themselves and the role of mystery in their lives. Other times, they sat in silence, letting their understanding speak for them as light hid, and shadows illuminated, as they always could.