As promised.

As promised last night when extreme tiredness and a reluctance to go to a radiator less bedroom induced a random post here is the bit of me that I said I would share. This story if you can call it that was written when I was going through my "very" short fiction phase.
Hope you enjoy.

On the Bridge at Dawn

 By

 Colette McCormick

.

Marion stood on the stone bridge and looked over its edge at the deep waters below. How had it come to this? When did it get this bad? There were so many questions but so few answers.

Marion knew what she had to do. She had known for weeks but had lacked the courage until now. Was it courage or was it desperation? Did it really matter?

In her younger days Marion could have hopped on top of the wall at the bridge’s edge with one leap. But that was many years and several stones ago. Now she would need help.

She looked at the wooden box in her hand. She placed it on the floor with deliberation. She knew that it would take her weight. She had tested it last night.

Slowly she climbed on to it.

Damn, she was still too low. She had underestimated the height of the wall.

Her mind raced frantically, desperate to come up with a solution. She had come so far, too far to go back.

Marion hitched up her skirt exposing a knee that was encased in a heavy surgical dressing. Forcing it to bend was a struggle but Marion fought the pain. Physical pain meant nothing to Marion anymore.

She forced the knee on to the top of the wall and looked around for something to pull herself up with. There was nothing.

She put the palms of her hands on the wall and tried to push off from the leg that still stood on the box. Could she support her weight? She would have to.

But she could not.

Wrists weak from arthritis gave way under her bulk, her weight dropping back on to her standing leg. The box underneath that leg slipped under the unusual pressure.

Marion heard a crack as she fell but her knee remained where it was wedged on top of the wall. She felt a needle of pain shoot through her standing leg as it landed on the floor. That knee gave way beneath her.

As the leg crumpled she fell backwards and in the split second that it took for her to fall to the floor she noticed with extreme clarity the beauty of the dawn sky. And after the bang of the head on the cobbles came the darkness.

And after that?

Nothing.