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The Bridge Builder – Part 06

Victorique sat next to William, settling down to match his eye level. Her pink frills stood out starkly in the colorless battlefield. Her silver hair glowed like cold, magical flames.

William aimed his gun, his right arm trembling uncontrollably.

“It’s a German soldier. A German soldier!” he muttered repeatedly, his face frozen in fear.

Victorique followed his gaze. Through the rising white smoke, a German soldier in uniform and cap appeared. He stood unarmed, fists clenched in a fighting stance. As the wind shifted the smoke, his face became faintly visible.

Almond-shaped eyes and a strong set of jaws. It was Dragline.

Victorique rose and walked over to the German soldier, examining his face up close.

“There’s no mistake. This is Dragline, the German student champion. The soldier William saw was Dragline.”

William screamed and pulled the trigger. The bullet, frozen with terror, flew through the air, piercing Dragline’s chest. Dragline collapsed with a thud.

Victorique crouched beside him, checking his face.

“Dragline is dead too.”

She turned her attention back to Eddie Sawyer, who lay on his back, arching, facing in her direction.

“Luke! Luke!” he shouted.

Victorique, a silver and pink phantom amidst the chaos on the bridge, moved closer to Eddie. She lay beside him, matching his posture and level of gaze, then looked toward William.

Time rewound, revealing what Eddie saw. Luke Jackson, white flowers in his hair, stood with arms outstretched in a crucifix pose, eyes closed.

William aimed his gun.

“William, stop!” Eddie shouted.

Victorique spoke to the wide-eyed Eddie. “I know you’re not lying. But I have a question. How did you see Luke’s face from this angle? And why did he have flowers in his hair? Why were his arms outstretched and eyes closed? You’re an honest man, but you made a significant mistake.”

She arched her back. “It was because of your position. The sky seems to be below, and the bridge above. Head down and legs up. Everything looks upside down.”

“One, two, three…” the referee counted from the Brooklyn Bridge. His voice sounded distant.

Victorique focused and saw Eddie in the present, lying on his back, struggling to get up and keep fighting.

Victorique slowly rose on the past bridge and puffed on her pipe. The golden pipe glowed ominously. “We must rewind time once more,” she murmured, releasing a cloud of smoke.

A roar erupted. The ground shook, and the bridge groaned like a beast. The dawn sky seemed to tear apart. Victorique tumbled across the bridge, all the way to the beams on the German-British side.

The shaking subsided. A German tank glinted, and an explosion followed. The ground trembled with each blast, nearly toppling the soldiers. Tiny white flowers bloomed on this side of the bridge.

Dragline, the German soldier, had thrown an American soldier, Mitch, under the bridge. Staggering back to his side, he muttered, “Good. The chicken soup guy should survive.”

As he crossed the bridge, he glanced down and saw another American soldier lying on the ground. Startled, Dragline crouched and wiped his dirty face. Luke Jackson’s face emerged.

Dragline lifted him up. “Hey, American champion! Luke, hey! Are you dead? You were laughing just moments ago.” He shook him, but there was no response. Dragline stood up and started away, only to feel compelled to come back.

He sighed. “I don’t know if you’re dead or just passed out, but either way you can’t stay here.”

Shaking his head, he tried to lift Luke, but he was too heavy. So instead, he grabbed Luke’s legs and hoisted him onto his back like a heavy backpack. Luke dangled on Dragline’s back, head down and legs up, swaying with each step.

Victorique puffed on her pipe and pointed with it. “Hmm, just as I thought. The white flowers that bloomed on the German side stuck to his head because he was carried upside down.”

White flowers adorned Luke’s head like a crown. Dragline crossed the bridge toward the American side, Luke’s inverted body swinging on his back.

“Hey, Luke. Y’know what? I ended up saving an American soldier on a whim. He looked so scared, I couldn’t shoot him. After saving one, that was it. I couldn’t shoot any more Americans. Can you believe it? And I used to be a boxer. I don’t think I’ll be able to hit anyone in the face ever again. Even if I make it back alive, I’ll retire from boxing. Maybe I’ll learn the recipe from that American guy and open a hot chicken soup shop in Berlin. Hey, Luke? What kind of man will you become after the war? How are you gonna surprise the world?”

He laughed. “Maybe you’re already dead, huh?” he went on, staggering across the bridge. “Luke, are you really dead? You were so strong and bright like the sun.”

He stopped and surveyed the bridge. Everywhere he looked, there were piles of corpses. Fallen young men.

“What short lives we led. Our time of youth, cut short just like that. The fun times, the laughing and singing, all gone.”

He wobbled away again.

“I might not look it, but I was an excellent soldier on the battlefield. I tried not to think about friends like you on the enemy side. But now… now that I remembered you were my friend, I couldn’t shoot anymore. Soldiers who can’t shoot are weak. I think…”

Luke’s body swayed on his back.

“I think I’m dying on this bridge.”

He shook his head slowly.

“I’m dying in this war.”

His colorless lips quivered.

“But that’s okay. I don’t want to kill anymore. I don’t want to kill any more friends. Even soldiers caught in this war, people I’ve never met before, seem like friends to me. It’s fine if I don’t make it back to Berlin alive.”

Black bullets flew. White smoke rose, and lifeless bodies kept piling up. Dragline, alone, crossed the bridge of death, like he was passing from this world to the next.

Meanwhile, on the present bridge, Eddie and William were locked in a fierce struggle. They hit each other with everything they had, glaring and shouting as they swung their fists.

From the distant past bridge, Dragline’s voice echoed.

“See you in heaven, Luke. No more fighting then. No more boxing, no more punches. That stuff just hurts. Next time, let’s throw our arms around each other and sing, talk. Hey, Luke. We had so much fun just now, huh?”

“Silent night, holy night. All is calm, all is bright.”

“Round yon Virgin Mother and Child.”

“I’m almost across the bridge. I wonder what’s on the other side.”

“The future.”

“Luke.”

“To the future…”

“I don’t know what’s coming, but I’m excited.”

“To the future!”

A gunshot rang out. A bullet, frozen with terror, flew. Time on the past bridge froze. Everything except Victorique stopped moving.

Victorique looked closer. Dragline was almost at the end of the bridge. His arms were in front of his chest, fists clenched in what looked like a fighting stance. Victorique stretched and squinted. She saw that he was holding Luke’s ankles, thus the pose. A bullet was headed straight for his chest, about to penetrate.

Victorique turned to look at William. Her silver hair fluttered, glimmering eerily under the snowy sky.

William’s face was stiff with fear. He was holding a gun, finger tight on the trigger, turning blue from the strain.

“William shot a German soldier, no doubt about it. He wasn’t lying,” murmured Victorique as she walked around Dragline.

Luke hung over Dragline’s back, arms dangling, resembling a crucifix. White flowers adorned his head like a crown. He was dead, eyes closed.

Eddie lay on the other side, flat on his back, head tilted backward. Blood covered his face, frozen in fear and sorrow.

“And what Eddie saw was undoubtedly Luke Jackson. He wasn’t lying either.” Victorique nodded, gripping her pipe. “Eddie saw everything from an inverted angle. In the chaos of battle, he probably didn’t realize Luke was upside down, head down, legs up.”

She leaned over the bridge railing to look down. An American soldier, presumably Mitch, lay bleeding from his arm and shoulder. Dragline stood in the middle, with the upside-down Luke on his back, and William and Eddie on either side watching.

“This was what they were doing in all the mayhem. Not one person lied. No one maliciously killed a comrade. If there was a culprit, it would be the brutal war itself.”

Victorique puffed on her pipe. She lowered her eyes, her golden lashes quivering. She recalled her terrifying past—tied to a chair, her frail body writhing from drug injections, with a man looking down at her suffering. His cruel gaze peering through a monocle.

Victorique shuddered. She cautiously opened her eyes and gazed at the frozen, colorless world. “But no one can change the past, nor stop the flow of time. No one can save the fallen.” She lowered her pipe. “Just as I can never bring back the Mother Wolf.”

The bygone wind brought with it even older memories. A gentle breeze from a peaceful time before the storm. The visage of the mother wolf. A face small and beautiful, just like Victorique’s, but with more mature and intricate features. A quiet, enveloping voice.

“Live. Run, my beloved. My daughter, born into this world by a mysterious fate. You are not only a descendant of the old, but you also represent a potential for the future.”

“Maman! Maman…” Victorique strained to hear something in the wind. “Don’t go! Maman!” But the gentle hallucination faded away.

Victorique’s green eyes flew wide open. Her glossy, cherry lips parted, and in a trembling voice, she rasped, “The river of time flows on!”