I stopped going home for holidays once my brother—my baby brother—got a job over the Mississippi River. Before that, I’d been the one my parents were most proud of. No one expected two creek bridges from a botanic garden to raise a bridge that spanned six lanes and a median so wide the riding mowers had to make four passes to trim the grass throughout summer.
But a river… I couldn’t top that. And he was tall enough to stay in place even as boats passed beneath him, not like those movable bridges, “short kings” he was gracious enough to call them, reminding me that everyone had their role.
My “role” became all I had after I skipped Christmas dinner and New Years drinks. Without family to ground me, I started wondering why I’d become a bridge in the first place. To make my parents proud? They had my brother for that now.
I watched cars pass below me and wondered what else I might do with myself.
A loud engine startled the birds perched on my walls and I looked up into the sleek silver underbelly of a plane. Suddenly, my gray concrete looked dingier than ever, but I knew it wouldn’t matter; I’d be so far away, no one could see.
I took a cautious step out of the median, stretched my arms and practiced folding them, flapping them, and then, ignoring the honks, crashes, and mayhem below, flew off into the sky.
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