Enveloped

She comes, every time she can steal a few minutes for herself, to watch the bridge. The bridge, and the people crossing it.

The traffic across was sporadic in the first years she came, but has picked up steadily, year after year. In the beginning it was individuals, mostly, and most on foot, but lately there have been couples, cars full of families, the occasional bus. No matter what time of day she comes, there is always someone travelling into the fog wall. She doesn’t know what they are heading into, the people of the exodus. No one does. But she knows why they make the crossing, go into the fog.

No one ever comes out of the fog.

Ever since the fog enveloped the bridge, no one has ever emerged from the other side to describe what happens there. No sound or electronic communication has ever been heard or detected. It seems to those outside of it, the fog absorbs everything it envelopes.

So, at first it was only explorers who crossed the bridge, and the military of course. Then it was those whose loved ones were trapped on the other side when the fog curtain had first fallen, or later crossed the bridge. Now, with the way everything has gone, the bridge has become an exodus of despair and hope.

She comes, every day she can get a few minutes away from him, to watch the steady stream and wonder whether it will be despair, or hope, which drives her across the bridge into the shroud of fog.

In the end, it will be hope. If I could tell her it will be hope, as she sits at her favourite viewing point today, she would just nod her head, stand, and make her way for the bridge. Smiling. If I could just whisper it in her ear, or speak to her with the authority of an inner voice. But I can only watch.

I wish I could tell her to come to me, right now. But we have a lot of patience here, and no despair. I can wait. It’s better if she finds the hope on her own, anyway. It’s always better to find hope on your own.