Lost Soul

Days 5-6

Day 5 Monday

I have learned more about the bridge from Terrance who as it turns out has been here a very long time. His bridge was built in 1874 after the first bridge failed, eaten away by wood worms. Terrance's bridge was taken out by a huge flood. I nod sympathetically as he tells me. I am remembering the floods in 2010 when I was a kid.  I had an argument with my mum because she didn't want me to go to my friends while all that was happening. I remember going out with my dad as part of the clean-up crew. Terrance wasn't around to see the demise of his bridge having died under it the previous year.

Terrance says that after his bridge there was another version before this one which had trams running up and down it. That bridge buckled from the weight of all the traffic and had to be demolished in the sixties. I never knew that the bridge had such a complex history. Terrance takes me to the end closest to the south bank and points out a little arch saying that that was part of the previous bridge.

I am very curious to know why Terrance has stayed here so long, all the other ghosts seem to be from eras much closer to my own. When I ask him he has this to say:

"I didn't live a good life, never cared much for anyone except myself and when I became a ghost I got stuck here and found my calling"

"How so?"

"Well I try to take care of the lost souls, the ones who have died out on the streets, the ones who are too crazy to even know they are dead or have done themselves a damage on this bridge."

He looks at me and I wonder if Terrance thinks he is my caseworker.

"So we're going to be friends Terrence?"

"Yeah, Death is the great leveler you know, it comes for the poor and the rich, the good souls and the bad."

He pauses to gaze out at the water,

"You know I met a Buddhist once he told me about Bodhisattvas, they are the ones who won't go on to heaven they stay behind getting reincarnated over and over until all suffering is ended. I would like to be like that for the people of the bridge, staying behind to help the younger ones cross."

Day 6 Tuesday

This morning my thoughts are really dark. I am thinking about Emily and how she might have died on this bridge and I am wondering if I could ever do that. I suppose I've had sad moments. I can remember being depressed when I was younger but I never thought death was an option.

Can someone just snap and kill themselves impulsively? I look down at the dark lapping water and shudder. I can't believe Emily did that to herself, she is so nice, but if she did could it explain why she lingers here? Is this bridge the equivalent of purgatory or limbo? I can't remember doing anything that was really bad except maybe stealing something to prove I was cool to the popular girls in year seven. If I do some unspecified amount of waiting here then do I get to go to heaven? It's all a mystery and not any clearer now I'm dead than when I was alive.

Emily quietly sidles up to me. She stands with me at the rail a while before speaking.

"Have you ever noticed how this city is so sunny, it never matches my mood."

I smile, "It rains sometimes, big thunderstorms."

"Yes, I love those, you wait it's so much fun"

With this cryptic remark she drifts off.

What I really wanted to say has gone unsaid, I wanted to ask Emily how she died but it feels like such a brutal question. Maybe this is why it's so hard to ask people with depression if they are okay. That's part of the problem, we never want to upset each other so we stay safe. It doesn't matter now but it's surely an important part of her story, I hope she tells me one day.

I go to her little memorial and crouch down before the spent candles, I say a silent prayer to a God I'm not sure I believe in. Please, please look after Emily and get me out of here!