By the time he’d climbed all the stairs to the fifth floor, the weight of his tools had almost pulled his shoulder out of its socket. Mitchell dropped it to the ground with a thud and rotated his arm like a windmill to loosen it up. He kneaded his fingers into the muscles of his shoulder blade.
The delivery waiting for him was a voluminous black bin bag. It didn’t have an address label and he wondered who’d sent it.
As he wearily dragged it into his apartment, he felt like Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, exhausted after delivering all the presents to find he’d left a bag behind at the North Pole.
The bag was tied too tightly, and instead of attempting to unfasten it, Mitchell ripped it wide-open.
An avalanche of letters spilled out, covering his feet.
Mitchell stared at them in disbelief, kicking them off. There must be hundreds of them here, maybe even a thousand.
After sitting down heavily on his sofa, he surveyed the giant pool of correspondence lying on his sitting room floor. He saw his name, repeated over and over, in a multitude of different writing styles—Mitchell Fisher, Mr. Fisher, the Hero on the Bridge.
Just looking at the envelopes made him feel like he was drowning in a sea of people’s expectations. He wasn’t a hero, or a celebrity, or a confidant. He was just a man, nothing more and often less.
Anger surged inside him, and he took off his wet shoes and threw them at the letters, one after the other. He stood and took a running kick at them in his socked feet, so they skittered across his floor. But all he did was make the place look untidy, a total mess.
He rubbed the back of his neck, wondering what Poppy would make of the scene when she returned home. Breathing deeply, he tried to let his distress subside, for her sake.
He began to push the letters together again, using the side of his foot. Then he bent down to use his hands. He gathered them roughly and stacked them into a series of piles so they surrounded him like molehills.
His eyes gravitated toward an envelope on top of one of the piles. It was lilac, the same color as Anita’s last letter to him.
For the briefest moment, he wondered if her letter had somehow found its way out of his nightstand drawer, into his sitting room. Or if she’d written to him from beyond the grave.
A shiver ran down his spine.
Even though he knew this was impossible, he reached down and picked up the lilac envelope anyway.
The writing sloped in a different direction to Anita’s, definitely not hers. But he slid a finger under its flap and tore it open.
Dear Sir,
I’ll turn eighty soon and have lived in the city all my life. So much has changed and I’m dismayed that many of my friends, those remaining, insist on living in the past. They shut themselves away, making their sitting rooms their comfortable prisons. “You only live once,” I tell them, but it falls on deaf ears.
Throughout my many years, I’ve watched red phone boxes evolve into tiny devices that fit into a pocket. I’ve seen padlocks appearing on the bridges, and watched the new white bridge taking shape. High-rise buildings have sprouted up on land I played on as a child, and I walk past the school where I once wore short trousers. I sometimes wish the city could stay the same, the comfort of familiarity. I suppose these are the selfish longings of an old man.
Regardless, I shall be present on the bridge to celebrate its opening and will wave my flag with enthusiasm and pride. My friends will probably drink cocoa and watch it all taking place on TV, but that’s their loss. My wife, Elsie, passed away twenty years ago now, but she always said, “One should always keep on moving, or else you might take root.” I try to follow her advice.
Edmond Wright
Mitchell held the letter for a while, rereading it and thinking how Poppy might like its combination of history and emotion. He thought that Edmond’s advice to keep moving made perfect sense, even if he himself had been stationary for three years. He felt comforted after reading it, as if he’d sipped a warm cup of tea.
He picked up a chunk of letters and they felt solid in his hands. They were various shapes and sizes, some fat and some slim, their textures pleasing to touch. Some envelopes were handwritten and others were neatly typed.
He told himself that people must be attracted by the prize money, but many who wrote to him wanted to share a secret or a story. Could his act of leaping into the river to save a stranger have really triggered all these?
He opened another.
Dear Mr. Fisher,
We don’t know you personally and I doubt you know us. However, we read about your courageous act and wanted to pass on our kind regards and admiration. Our son Simon lost his life in the same river last summer. Although people tried to save him, it was too late.
He was our golden boy, our only child. The chasm he left behind is beyond measure. Each day without him feels like forever. Our only consolation is we knew he loved us and everyone loved him. He’d want us to continue our lives without him.
We are setting up a campaign to warn people about the dangers of open water, and would be most grateful to hear if you’d be interested in becoming involved.
With warm regards,
Ben and Melissa McDonald
He clung on to the letter. Yes, he wanted to call out to them. Yes, of course I’ll help you.
A sense of urgency to read another one washed over him and Mitchell’s eyes fell upon a postcard sticking out. It had an image of two black-and-white kittens on the front, peering out from under a blanket. He read the words on the back.
Pussycat
You make me feel like a puddle
You make my body giddy with glee
And my brain feels like an explosion
Will you marry me?
Third time lucky x
The corners of Mitchell’s mouth twitched upward at this one. He wondered if the writer wanted to get married for a third time, or if they’d asked Pussycat three times? Was an exploding brain a good thing, or not?
As he pondered, a small polka-dot envelope caught his eye, and he opened it and read the note inside it. The paper was small and lined, torn from a spiral bound pad.
Mr. Mitchell Fisher,
I’m in love with Jessica and have tried to show her this—letters, flowers, a padlock on the bridge, without success.
She told me what you did, saving a woman, and says you’re a hero. Will you write me back so I can try to win her over, one last time? I’d appreciate that.
Cheers,
Damon
Mitchell noticed the writer had left a return address, and for a moment he considered picking up a pen to reply. Perhaps it might help Damon to win Jessica back. But he placed the letter to one side, thinking he might respond, sometime or other. And he should write to Ben and Melissa McDonald, too.