The Man and the Bridge: An Urban Bridge Story
There once lived, in another time, in another world, an Ageless Man. He was not a young man, for his face bore the wrinkles of a wisdom gained over time, but he was not an old man either, for his body was still full of vigor and his mind rich in imagination. Both young and old at once, the man lived in a land inhabited by many other Ageless ones. It was a Good Land, full of life. No one owned anything because everything was the property of the land owner, and no one was in need of anything because the land owner freely shared of everything.
The Ageless man had lived in this Good Land for so long now, and enjoyed the refreshing water and great food of his land for so long, that he often forgot any other lands existed; that there could even be any other kind of land.
But they did. There were other lands – many of them not so good. In fact, in some of the other lands, there was great drought – a stark contrast to the lush green pastures of this Ageless land. In those other lands, the wrinkles ran much deeper, the bodies grew much weaker with each passing year, and the hearts of the people there sought childlike joy much more often than they found it.
One such land was actually not that far off, but The Ageless man had never been there.
You see, The Ageless Man’s land was really a kind of island. It was separated by a great expanse of water from all the other lands. And so, it was quite easy to forget the other lands were there at all; quite easy until one day…
One day the Ageless man was down at the water fishing. He had come down many times before, and would return many times after – but this day was different. After a couple of hours, the man saw something coming on the horizon. It was something foreign, but somehow familiar.
As he stared at it over the water he began to remember – and then he saw – a distant shoreline take shape behind the thing. As he stared again, he saw that the thing was really a person; a man, much like himself. That man was floating on a raft which got bigger – closer – each minute. Soon the raft was so close that the Ageless man standing on the shore could see the deep lines in the face of the man on the raft, great shadow’s marring the visage of a person who looked very old. At last the Old man on the raft had reached the shore, stepped off the raft and on to the beach where the Ageless man had been fishing.
Here the two men spoke, which took some effort since the men spoke the same tongue each in a different dialect. But as they spoke, it soon became clear that the land from which the Old man had come was in the midst of great drought. The Ageless man could hardly believe what he was hearing – that not only this stranger, but a whole nation of people, were living, aging, and dying in a dry and empty land.
Immediately he gave the Old Man all the fish he had, brought fruit and vegetables from his garden and fresh water from his well as much as the Old man could take back with him on the raft – Still deep down the Ageless man knew that what he had given could only help a few people back in the Dry Land of drought, these supplies could only last for so long. It seemed so hopeless, and yet he didn’t know what else he could do; the raft was so small. But as the Old Man departed back to his home the Ageless man made a promise that he would soon come to that Dry land across the water. Not on a raft, but on a Bridge.
A Bridge could be built across the water, and then all from the Dry Land could come to the Good Land and eat and drink whatever they wanted. They could swim in the pools, drink from the wells and eat from the gardens. And perhaps then, they too would become ageless.
The only question was; who could build such a massive Bridge?
So the Ageless man began to plan. He spoke with engineers, carpenters and builders of all kinds. They all told him the same thing – that to build a bridge of that size was just too hard. It had never been done – never even been tried! They told him that it could never reach that far – and even if it could – it could never bear the weight of all of those people – who knew how many thousands there could be?!
The Ageless man was discouraged, disheartened, he had only just begun and already he had to abandon his dream, his promise.
He tried to return to his normal routine, forget about the bridge, but each time he ate the fruit from his garden, it tasted more bitter than the day before. His sweet strawberries somehow seemed sour, his apples bland and boring. He no longer felt refreshed after a dip in his pool and as he drank from his well it would never quite quench his thirst. As the days passed he even became sure that he was getting older, he felt more worn out than before. He was feeling the thirst of those from the Dry Land – and he needed to do something about it.
With no where else to turn too the Ageless man decided that he must speak with the Land Owner and petition him to build a bridge across the waters; surely He could help, the whole of the Good Land was His to share. So the ageless man was welcomed into the house of the Land Owner where he made his plea, to ask the Land Owner if He would build a bridge across the waters to the land in drought. The Land Owner told the Ageless man that he had often wanted to build such a bridge; but why hadn’t He? “Because” the Land Owner said “No one was willing to build it, are you willing to build this bridge?” Unsure of his abilities but unable to shake his memory of the Old man he had met on the shore, the Ageless man agreed that he would build the bridge; but how? “I will supply all you need to build the bridge” said the Land Owner “all you must do is work”.
So the Ageless man began to build the bridge, unsure of himself, but sure of the Land Owner’s promise, and the Old Man’s need.
Night and day he worked on the Bridge, alone. It took days, months – even years. But eventually – he saw what he had seen on the beach so long ago – the shoreline of another land. He cried out with excitement and called for others to come and see, and when the others came to the bridge and saw the far off land they joined with the Ageless Man in building the bridge, even those who had told him before that it couldn’t be done. Now the Bridge grew faster, and soon, that Bridge was complete.
With great joy, the ageless man ran across the bridge in search of the old man he had met so many years earlier. He found the old man, bent over and weary, picked the old man up in his arms and carried him across to the good land, the promise finally fulfilled. The old man was followed by his family, and they in turn were followed by many more men, women and children. Soon, the Good Land had doubled in population, and a funny thing happened. You would think that there would have been less food for everyone with so many more people but just the opposite was true, the food and water was more abundant than ever. And another thing, it seemed that the more people who came to share in the Good Land the bigger the land got to make room for them. As the land grew, the water separating the lands shrank until people didn’t even need to cross on the bridge anymore.
The pools of the good land were cooler now, the wells ran deeper, their water tasted sweeter, and somehow as the good land grew even the very land that had given nothing but drought before, the Dry Land, now connected to the Good Land, started to grow it’s own Good Food.
The Good Land was more beautiful than ever, and all because the Ageless Man had built a bridge.