The Bridge

I was built to connect two sides that preferred to misunderstand each other. Wood remembers hands. Nails remember pressure. I have carried centuries of small decisions: to cross, to retreat, to stand still and call it safety. The city is loud behind them, the river is patient beneath them. Neither asks for belief. That morning, the Fool arrived first, barefoot, carrying a notebook like an unlit lantern. He stepped onto my boards as if he trusted them, which is a rare kind of arrogance.

From the shadow below, the Troll rose. He has lived near me so long he thinks he owns the questions.

“Name your purpose,” the Troll said.

The Fool said he didn’t have one. The Troll called him a liar. Rain began. I creaked the way I always creak when a truth is about to be spoken out loud. They argued in the language of their species. Proof, plans, weather, cages; while the river did its one great job: moving, moving, moving. Then the Fool opened the notebook: emptiness that looked like a dare. The Troll mocked it. The Fool insisted it was unclaimed.

And then the turn: the second cover, dark where the first was light.
A twin.
A mirror.
A refusal to be only one thing.

The Troll stepped onto my center, not to block, but to test. The Fool held the notebook between them exactly where I am strongest. They spoke of hope and responsibility. Skepticism and vulnerability. The old dance of opposites pretending they cannot touch. At last, they sat down on my boards, wet and ridiculous, and began to read.

From the Fool’s side first: wonder, risk, the bravery of not knowing. They reached my middle. The point where all crossings become choices and the pages went still, as if the book itself had learned my oldest secret:

You cannot cross a divide without changing shape.

They flipped to the Troll’s side: suspicion, precision, the refusal of cheap comfort. It did not destroy the first half. It sharpened it. That is the function of shadow: not to erase light, but to prove it has edges.

The Fool whispered that it hurt.
The Troll said, quietly, good.

When they stood again, the rain had stopped. The river did not clap. The city did not forgive. The world remained unfinished, as it always will. But their alignment changed, subtle as a compass correcting itself.

They crossed together.

And I, built to divide and connect at once, did what bridges are meant to do:

I held.

The bridge doesn’t care which direction you came from. 
It only cares that you arrived.