Read below for a beautiful flash fiction by Helen Chambers, The Writers Company's micro-fiction expert, first published in 'Meniscus' in 2018
Simon loves her from the very first time he sees her. He visits her twice daily, each day: once on his way into the office and once on his way home, and even following the same route at weekends. She smiles back at him. He loves her for the way her clean lines curve round, and soon he greets her in his head: ‘Good Morning, Brigitta; Good Evening Brigitta.’ Her elegant arcs sweep upwards in unbroken lines and her slim walkaway is suspended from tall legs by four heavy cables. He knows her intimately, penetrates between her uprights, slides his bare hand across her silky handrail. The River Aire churns and swirls beneath her, rattling the remains of the winter ice and carrying the scent of departing snow.
Simon always slows down as he crosses, inhales her metallic aroma and senses her gentle rebound of his every careful footstep, reverberating through him as if the gravitational pull of his personal mass decreases significantly at this point. Caressing his Brigitta is the highlight of his otherwise stuffy indoor day, the only time he feels a connection to anything apart from work.
Springtime sun filters through the tower blocks, illuminating Brigitta’s stately beauty and Simon stirs. He takes his first lunchbreak in months, and eats his sandwiches shivering on concrete steps overlooking the river, from where he admires Brigitta’s outline, but equally where, he is sure, she cannot see him watching over her.
Spring lengthens into summer. Couples amble over her, arm in arm, stopping to admire their reflection in the still waters beneath her. One morning, his trailing hand catches onto something metallic, and he is horrified to find her manacled by a disfiguring padlock. Looking closely, he sees scratchy initials engraved into the metal. By now he is taking extended morning coffee and afternoon tea breaks standing on Brigitta – only a ten-minute powerwalk from his office, if you don’t count the extra five minutes either way in the lift. More padlocks appear like warts, one ignorant couple copying another, desecrating her sanctity.
Simon finds, with careful planning, he can make her his outdoor office for hours at a time, taking phone calls whilst pacing gently barefoot along her spine, sitting notetaking across her back, leaning his laptop against her handrail. No one dare violate her on his watch. Summer passes, and in the autumn, he is sacked. He takes his cardboard box of belongings straight to Brigitta, and one by one, he throws them over her shoulders into the foaming river. Last of all, he pulls out bolt-cutters and sets to, cutting through all the padlocks one by one, flinging them into the current. Then he stretches himself out along her length, caressing her back until he falls asleep, his head on her shoulder.
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