Four beats under the bridge

THE STORY BEHIND THE SOUND

The railway bridge crosses the river ahead. Before reaching it, you hear wheels meeting the joints in the track. As a child you tried to count those successive beats. Later you always passed too quickly, and the habit disappeared. Today nothing needs you at a particular time, so you follow the path beneath the bridge and stand where you can see the ironwork without blocking anyone.

A soft pulse travels alongside the bass. Its rhythm is more regular than the passing train, but it has the same clear rise and fall. As you count a fourth beat, something taps the ground beside the railing. A pencil case with an open zip has fallen, sending several colored pencils outward. One catches in a brick joint. Another rolls all the way to your shoe.

You help a child with a schoolbag collect them. Each pencil tip is checked before the colors return to a carefully chosen order. A blue one is still missing. Searching a little farther along the brick joints, you find it among leaves behind a bridge pillar. The child closes the zip and pats the case solemnly, as though completing an important piece of work.

By the next train, you are walking beside the river again. That pause was not part of any plan, yet it has found an easy place in the day. You try counting the sound once more and realize that you need not identify every beat. It is enough to hear them passing and know that you are allowed either to keep walking or to stop for a while.