© 2017 Bill Murphy
During the night, in a small hamlet in upstate New Jersey, a bridge went missing. No, this was not a collapse. The bridge simply up and vanished – lock, stock and barrel.
Where the day before stood a heavily traveled arched iron bridge over a small river, now there was nothing. Not a trace. The roadway simply ended a few dozen yards from the river bank – cut off as clean as if done with a jeweler’s saw.
What made it all the more strange was that there was absolutely no evidence left that there had ever been a bridge there! Right up next to the pristine ends of the old highway, grass and wildflowers grew – as if they’d done so for decades.
It cause quite a traffic jam for morning commuters, and kiddies on school busses. It didn’t take long before head-scratching municipal authorities arrived to investigate this strangest of phenomenons. Needless to say, they were at a complete loss, as were county and state inspectors when they too arrived on the scene. One brave soul speculated that it was snatched away by UFOs.
Soon it became a media circus. Before 9 AM there were more news vans (they had to park blocks away) than stranded motorist and school kiddies. By 10 any news anchor worth their weight in salt was either on site, or well on their way – with several charter flights madly racing across the oceans.
Of course, there were ample residents to interview. “No, I never heard a thing during the night,” said one. “I swear I heard a huge ‘swooshing‘ noise, like a great wind or something,” said another. “I was up letting the cat back inside, around 1, when I heard it – must-a scared Felix, my cat. Scared me too!”
Around 3, Fox News interviewed a sweet old lady who lived within 40 yards of where the bridge once stood. Yes, she told them, she knew what happened to it. She knew exactly what happened to it.
According to Bela Doukas, she made the bridge ‘go away.’
Her story aired across the nation that evening on Fox News. No other news agency spoke with Bela. She explained that she’d lived “There,” as she pointed towards her house, for almost 60 years.
“Me and my Mom immigrated here from what was left of a tiny village in the mountains of northern Greece, in 1946 it was. First the Germans tore the place up, then the British made a further mess of it trying to push out the Germans. Them American boys didn’t exactly treat the town nicely either, but I married one of ’em. We didn’t have much left after the war. No need to stay. Came here with the hubby.”
She paused a moment to catch her breath. Bela Doukas‘ health had seen better days.
“Mama died before she could complete her citizenship here. All of us had good jobs, and we bought the little house there.” And she pointed to it again. “Like I said. Lived here since then. Saw a lot of changes. Most of it noisy – like the war. Boom, boom, boom. All the time. Build this. Build that. Then tear it down and build something else. Boom, boom, boom. And that bridge – it was the noisiest of all. Garbage trucks going back and forth, big trucks hauling who knows what, busses, endless cars – and every one always blowing horns. I got sick of it. So, last night, I put a hex on the bridge, you know, poof be gone – and it was GONE!”
With a huge grin on her face she exclaimed, “Now I can have peace!”
Of course, fewer people watch Fox News that ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, and NPR. So who really knows what happened to the bridge! But Bela Doukas claims she did it, and the fact remains – the bridge is GONE!
~~
Pen In Hand 