More Fractured Tales stories!
A few years ago, the local government finally decided it was time to do something about the severe lack of accommodations in the city.
Almost overnight, new apartment complexes sprang up… many of them just outside city limits… and I was lucky enough to get a decent third-floor place… but it hadn’t come cheap.
I had one fairly large room with a bathroom on one side of the entrance… a large closet on the other side… and a six-foot kitchenette that was hidden behind folding doors. Furnishing was my own responsibility… for which ‘Thrift Stores” had come in handy.
The selling point of this place was the opposite end of the room… which formed part of the outer wall of the building.
It basically consisted of two large windows… with a door between them that opened onto a narrow balcony. From there, I had a clear view of a somewhat unique feature.
It was a bridge… known as the Snake-back… and it stretched across the largest man-made wetland in the world.
No one knew how long it had been there… if it was part of the original wetland construction… or it was added later to enable people to walk across the wetland without damaging the fragile environment.
Or maybe it had no real purpose at all… just an added attraction… put there simply for people who liked to walk close to nature.
Apparently the name Snake-back was chosen because of its shape.
It curved and twisted across the area like some gigantic serpent… winding around gnarled and weathered tree stumps… and hugging some very large boulders.
The edges brushed close to some of the small deep pools, clumps of tall grass, and reeds in the area.
Supported on cribwork… whole sections of it floated after a heavy rain… while other parts remained just under the surface.
In high winds the bridge would move slightly… up and down like the ripples on the water… giving it the appearance of a living, breathing entity.
I always had the sense that there was something kind of sinister about it… a vague feeling that something wasn’t quite right… though I could never explain why I felt that way.
The Snake-back was in full view every time I looked out the window… or stepped out on the balcony… but I had never paid much attention to it… it was just there. The day I first looked closely at the bridge is etched in my mind as clear as if it was yesterday… February 15th… the day after Valentine’s Day.
I had awakened that morning, grateful that I finally had a day off… a day to do whatever I felt like doing… or I could choose to do nothing at all.
With the first cup of coffee in my hand, I walked out onto the balcony and drew a deep breath of fresh air. On that day, for the first time… I saw a man walking on the Snake-back… and he appeared to be elderly.
He was walking fairly fast… head down… both hands in his pockets… as if he had a purpose… or was going somewhere… but where? Where did the Snake-back end?
