The Rope Bridge Forgets Neither Bank

The rope bridge sags in the middle, always, no matter how new the fiber. It cannot choose one shore over the other, so it holds both equally, and suffers for it. Every footstep transfers weight from one side to the other, briefly, before the bridge takes it back into itself. Nothing crosses without leaving something behind: warmth in the wood, oil in the grip. Halfway across, a walker belongs to neither bank, and the bridge knows this better than the walker does. It has felt ten thousand crossings and completed none of them itself. It is the only thing on the mountain that must remain divided in order to be useful.