“The Bridge at Dusk”
They met where the old stone path
dropped toward the river bend,
light thinning, air sharp enough
to make every breath feel earned.
Neither had planned its timing.
Both arrived as if summoned
by the same stubborn thought.
“So you came.”
The voice carried more grit than welcome.
“Aye. Someone had to.”
A shrug, half‑defensive, half‑defiant.
Wind pressed between them
like a third participant
waiting for the first misstep.
They stood there, two figures
carved by long weather,
each convinced the other
had stepped away first.
Old loyalty sat heavy
beneath their ribs,
but pride held the reins.
“You vanished.”
“You stopped asking.”
“You pushed.”
“You pulled.”
The quarrel rose quick,
a flare of flint on flint.
Hands gestured sharply,
boots scraped gravel,
and for a moment it seemed
they might walk off
in opposite directions
and let the river claim the rest.
But something shifted.
Not softened — shifted.
A realisation landing
like a stone in the gut:
they were fighting
but why they still care?
One exhaled first.
A long, tired breath
that wasn’t quite surrender
but wasn’t defiance either.
“I thought you’d turned away.”
The words came low,
as if dragged from a locked drawer.
“I thought the same of you.”
A reply without armour.
The wind eased.
The river kept its steady run.
They stood shoulder to shoulder,
not touching, not speaking,
just letting the quiet
do what their pride could not.
When they finally walked back
toward the path,
nothing grand was declared.
No speeches.
No tidy moral.
Just two figures moving
in the same direction again,
step for step,
letting the evening
carry the rest.
.
