Rain. Always rain. On the bridge. The river below was swollen. Brown. Churning with junk.
He smoked. Same brand. The cheap one. His lungs felt it now. A rattle. Deep down.
Seasons didn't change. They just… turned. Like a wheel on a broken cart.
Summer. Two years after the train. Heat rose from the asphalt in waves. The river stank. Rotting algae. Dead fish. He'd come here after shifts. Stand. Sweat through his shirt. The water was low. Exposed mudflats like old scars. He threw a bottle in. Watched it float away. Slow. No destination.
Winter. Four years in. His first proper coat. Thrift store. Still smelled like someone else's old cigarettes. The wind on the bridge cut like a knife. His ears hurt. The water was black glass. Hard. He thought about jumping. Not to die. Just to see if the ice would hold. He didn't.
Spring. Year seven. Cherry blossoms across the river. A sickening pink haze. Too cheerful. It made him angry. The smell was cloying. Sweet decay. He came at night to avoid it. The petals swirled in the dark. Looked like litter.
Autumn. Year nine. He was with Mika then. Brought her here once. She shivered. "It's sad here," she said. He didn't answer. They left. He never brought her back.
Rain again. Year twelve. A different job. Driving a company van. Back hurt from the seat. He'd bought better cigarettes. Didn't taste better. Just cost more. He stood in the same spot. Leaned on the same rusted railing. The city skyline had changed. A new building. Glass. Looked like a shard of ice. It meant nothing.
The swell wasn't a wave. It was the slow rise of the waterline. On the concrete pylons. A stain. Marking each year's high point. A dirty ledger of time.
He saw himself aging in the store windows he passed. A blurry reflection. Gaining lines. Losing light. His hair thinning. His posture slumping under the weight of nothing.
People moved around him. Faster. Phones glowed in their hands. The world got louder. Sharper. He got duller. A worn stone in the riverbed.
He stopped feeling the cold the same way. It just was. He stopped noticing the smells. The river stink. The exhaust. It was all just air.
The memory of the rooftop was a photograph left in the sun. Bleached. Details gone. Just the outline. The feeling of cold gravel. The blue tint. The charge in the air before she arrived. Those stayed. The specifics—the joke she told, the song that played—those melted away.
He was a fossil. Preserved in the amber of a single year. 1999. Everything after was just sediment. Layers of dirt piling on top.
He came to the bridge because it was the only place that matched the inside of him. A structure for crossing over. That led to the same damn place.
One night. Year fifteen maybe. He lost count. He finished his cigarette. Flicked it. Watched the tiny ember arc down. Vanish into the black water.
No satisfaction. No thought.
Just a breath in. A breath out.
The swell of time wasn't dramatic. It was the unbearable weight of the ordinary. The crushing silence of a life spent waiting for a signal that had gone dead.
He turned. Walked back to the van. To the next shift. To the next day. To the next turn of the wheel.
The bridge stood behind him. The water kept moving. Taking everything with it. Slowly.