Bridge

Brian took a step back and quite literally laughed at himself. It was hardly a bridge too far. This quaint thing of stone and mortar but a short distance away sitting muted by the mists of the forest morning quite and inviting. What struck him funny was not in fact the nature of the bridge but rather what it represented. Change. Change on the most fundamental of levels. He turned the idea of "bridge" as a metaphor over in his mind as a strange curiosity looking at it as a shiny oddity. The metaphor applied more to this bridge than it ever had to any other physical or metaphysical bridge.

You see, while this bridge seemed to span a small stream in the forest, and indeed did, if taken on this particular morning, by this particular man, of particular intent it would leave him in the most unexpected of places. This bridge spanned not place but time. A great deal of time if one chose allowing one to see the birth of mankind, the rise of nations and the fall of kings. This bridge could show you the secrets lost to the ages, to see history, to change history. This was a threshold to the past and he who crossed it had at his disposal a pen to rewrite the history of his species.

One might think this power would elicit a laugh only from the most power mad and corrupt but Brian's laugh was without malice and greed, but one of genuine amusement at what he had chosen to do with this god-like power. Two days later, the bridge 227 miles and 43 years at his back, "Yes, one ticket to the Woodstock music and art fair please".