27 chapter 27
Stumbling for the third time, dust smearing on his clothing and his breath shortened without ease, Vukan lifted himself up and continued his sprint towards the bridge which was just ahead. He had ditched the car some distance back and sought to make his run over, carrying his hurt, his ego and dented pride all along with him.
The look of despair, disappointment and anger on his parents' faces remained with him regardless of how badly he sought to clean and wash himself of it. He knew he had done wrong, but he equally knew he had not been understood. Nobody had taken the much needed time to see he had been hurting and he simply wanted to be heard. He badly felt the need to be listened to.
Sobbing and sniffing, with his vision clouded in a glassy manner, he dropped to his knees. The merciless earth underneath, jabbed through his knee and bruised it with tiny stones. The pain he felt from the knee bruise didn't even come close to what his heart was still struggling with. Nothing felt like it could come close and he continued to make his journey towards the bridge.
After all, everything had begun from the bridge.
While he finally arrived, Vukan stopped to catch his breath and to check his hurting knee. He paused to access how far he had been running and how long he had taken to get to the bridge. Normally, it should have taken him no more than three minutes. Instead, burdened by unseen weight which he could very well feel, he had arrived using no less than seven minutes.
"Who exactly is willing to stand and fight for me?' he asked himself.
His voice bore distraught, his throat felt sore and his eyes continued to ooze copious amounts of water. If there was a solution to solve everything in that moment, he wanted it. He wanted answers for his misery and solutions that didn't mean he had to shove himself through rubbish to get them.
His mind recalled the coins he had been tossing into the river and he began to approach the railing.
"It has to be worth something. It has to count for something, else he wouldn't be hell bent on coming here all the time", he said to himself before stopping at their usual spot.
By the looks of things, nobody had gone past the bridge for that evening. Dust gathered on the ground and leaves were littered all over. He leaned into the railing and looked down into the calm waters underneath and saw nothing but his reflection and rocks glancing right back at him. His reflection seemed to mock him, just as his emotions were in that moment.
"What do I need to do?" he asked with his gaze locked on the reflection staring right back at him from the calm river. "What can I do to make it all stop and go away?"
Any answer at all would do in that moment. Any response or sign would have been more welcome.
Vukan was at a point he never knew he could be. He had angered and embarrassed his parents and family in one horrendous manner in just one day. He had pushed his family to the edge and they had responded in the oddest way yet.
His father had struck him and would have done so again had his mother not interjected.
"What have I done?" Vukan asked himself.
Desperate and baffled about what to do to get himself out of the current rot, he toggled through his pants for some coins. Luckily, he found three.
"I need a breakthrough… any breakthrough would do", he whispered with the first coin placed closely to his mouth.
Fueled by anger and the need to find a resolve, he tossed the coin as far as his hand could go, watching it skid off the water surface before finally disappearing from sight. Vukan waited for a sign. He looked around in anticipation, with hope and a great deal of faith in the river being able to grant his wish. Sadly, nothing out of the ordinary came to be.
Disappointed, but still filled with the belief that something would come through, he picked the second coin and whispered the same hopeful words into it.
"All I ask for is a sign that things will get sorted", he said to himself. "I am not asking for too much. I just want a sign".
This time around, he tossed the coin closer to the bridge, where he could see it sink and slowly float away through the clear waters. Asides some birds cawing and flying past, nothing out of the ordinary came to be again. He could feel himself begin to believe there was just no hope coming his way.
"Something should have happened by now", Vukan told himself. "Oliver believes in it so it must work… he believes in you, so you have to show me something to know our beliefs have not been misplaced!"
Vukan's endless shouts only ended with his words being echoed back to him as night began to draw close.
He finally took three steps back from the railing, held the last coin in his hand and looked at it intensely. It was his last short and he hoped it would be the third charm.
"I don't know what I'm doing, but I believe in love and I believe in people made to connect with one another", he said whilst tightening his hand around the coin.
He dropped the coin into his pocket and carefully began to climb the bridge's railing until he was in an upright position atop of it.
"I don't know what I am doing, but I feel lost and I need something to believe in!" he yelled before taking out the coin in his hand.
Vukan closed his eyes, muttered some incoherent words and pictured his angry parents and Oliver who looked grief-stricken with disappointment. His heart wailed for his actions and without thinking about things for too long, Vukan let the coin go. Seconds later a strong wind blew him off the bridge and threw him into the river. His body rammed hard into the underlying water with his eye closed.
***
In a loud gasp and heavy panting, Vukan awakened to find himself ashore on the riverbank. Darkness had engulfed everywhere asides the flickering light atop the bridge. The light continued to flicker, drawing in his attention before finally becoming stable.
"What in the world?" Vukan asked himself as he looked around to find he was on the same spot he had managed to drag Oliver to the other night.
He sat up and looked at his hand; the coin was still perfectly lodged in his palm. Something else caught his attention as he felt his body to find his clothes were dry, without a single drop of water on them. The oddity caused him to hurry to his feet as he further accessed his clothing.
"This isn't impossible", he thought to himself.
He was certain about tossing two coins into the river, before falling off the rail, with the last coin lodged in his hand. The image had been clear as day and the longer he thought about it, the more puzzling it was.
"How did I get here?" he asked himself.
There was no answer, and even the answer he had was bizarre to say the least. He could have dried up so fast even if the sun was pouring right down on him. The fact his hair felt dry and his nostrils didn't even feel as though he had fallen into water and struggled to breathe made it more puzzling.
"Maybe this is the hope I was searching for", Vukan concluded within himself.
Since he had pleaded with the river to grant him a sign, he pondered on whether that was precisely what he had been given.
"Oliver", he gasped.
That was the first name to come to mind and he looked to the river with thanks on his lips. He raced as fast as his stiffened joints will carry him, until he could run no more. Vukan jogged the remaining length of the journey back to his car. He felt he had to apologize to someone and that should be Oliver. He had insulted not just him but his family too.
"I will deal with my parents later", Vukan assured himself.
Sorting things in his own home shouldn't be hard. The hard part would be convincing Oliver's parents to even look him in the face, talk less of speaking with him. The insults he labeled against them were chastising and the manner in which he had done it was uncalled for. Asides the fact they were old enough to be his folks. They were respectable people with pride and who worked hard to achieve everything they had.
More so, they weren't poor; they were above comfortable even if they weren't as wealthy as his parents.
"What got into me for heaven's sakes?" he queried his disappointing and quite disgraceful acts.
There was no doubt that he owed them all an apology. Vukan wasn't one to admit his wrong unless it was of utmost importance. Oliver and his family were as important as anything else would get. More so, they had done him no wrong.
Through his drive, he kept his mind busy with thoughts on whether or not he had actually gone into the water. The mystery surrounding the events that followed and the realization he made after coming back to consciousness still baffled him.
"I didn't doze off", he told himself as best as he could.
He couldn't remember walking to that side of the river and he definitely couldn't recall even lying down to sleep. He would pick up the memory of falling off the river railing into the water, and waking up later on, dry and absolutely free of water debris.
"it is a miracle", he smiled.
It was the first sincere smile he had managed to muster in quite some time. It warmed his heart, but apologizing to Oliver's parents and trying to sort things through would warm his heart some more.
***
