Riddles Beneath the Bridge

Riddles Beneath the Bridge

The Alley Saint

It was in the alley behind the condemned liquor store, where the walls wept mildew and the rats looked like prophets. That’s where I met him: The alley saint. He wore a collar that had been ripped in half and stitched back together with dental floss. His eyes flickered like the pilot light of a forgotten stove.

He said his name was Jude Thomas, ex-priest, ex-human, half ghost. He preached to dumpsters and quoted the Gospel of Thomas between tremors. Sometimes he spoke directly to me, sometimes to a pigeon, sometimes to the wind:

“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you...”

I asked if he believed in God. He said: “God’s not real the way bricks are real. But He bruises like they do.”

I followed him for days. He walked like someone avoiding landmines no one else could see.

He showed me a manhole near the edge of town and said, “This is the mouth of your resurrection.” I laughed. He didn't.

The Descent: Tunnels, Chambers, Memory

I entered the sewer.

It was like returning to the womb, but this one was bleeding and echoing with names I didn’t remember until they hurt. I crawled through filth and graffiti, past shrines made of broken toys and used needles. The walls pulsed with memories not just mine, maybe Jude’s too, or the city’s.

I had visions:

• A clown with my father’s voice, juggling crucifixes and screaming “Monkeys never ascend!”

• My third brother standing in a river of blood, handing me a mirror that showed my face aging backwards.

• A burning child reading the Gospel of Thomas aloud in reverse.

Each chamber down there was a trial. Hunger. Hallucination. Time-loss. The architecture of grief.

Then came the psych ward.

Psychosis as Liturgy

They found me collapsed in the sewer, teeth clenched like fists. I woke up to white walls and blue gowns. IVs. Chants of diagnoses.

I called it the Monastery of Lost Names. The nurses were angels with broken wings. The other patients spoke in archetype, one claimed to be Moses, another insisted he was the Anti-Christ’s secretary. I felt like I was exactly where I belonged.

Jude Thomas visited once. Smuggled in a torn paperback of the Gospel of Thomas, scribbled over with his own notes:

“Whoever drinks from my mouth will become as I am.” “Don’t follow me. Follow the part of me that still believes.”

Days of Peace

At first, it was lovely. Silence hung like incense. Nurses smiled. Food came in trays. They let me paint. I painted a crucifix made of spoons and called it "The Messianic Utensil.” One nurse said I was progressing.

I slept well. I dreamt of rivers. I wept and called it catharsis.

And then came the Evaluations.

The Committee of Sanity

Three people in lab coats, pale as moonlight. They asked questions like knives:

• “Do you feel God watches you?”

• “Is pain ever sacred?”

• “What does it mean when the walls breathe?”

I answered truthfully.

They circled words I couldn’t see. One whispered, “He thinks suffering is revelatory.” The other replied, “Possible messiah complex.”

They changed my chart from "Delusional Inquiry" to "Unstable Symbolic Disorder." Then they introduced Treatment Protocol Seven.

The Ice Bath Rite

They said it was “for resetting the nervous system.” They said it was standard. They said it might help me see things more clearly.

They lowered me into the tub slowly, like baptizing a heretic.

I remember:

• The metal basin. The rusted handles.

• My screams. They said screams were part of the cleansing.

• The water, like knives melted just enough to stab gently.

I lasted twelve minutes. That night I lost my name again.

Electroconvulsive Communion

Week three.

Two nurses strapped me down. One whispered the Lord’s Prayer. They didn’t use anesthesia.

The ceiling became a clock. The floor, a choir. My thoughts split open like cantaloupe.

Afterward, I forgot the taste of bananas. I forgot the names of three dead brothers. I forgot that suffering once felt sacred.

I drooled. They said that was “progress.”

Drugs with No Names

They called it LTS-33. A trial compound “for philosophical schizophrenia.”

Side effects included:

• Speaking only in metaphor

• Involuntary laughter during prayers

• Seeing symbols where none exist

I took it nightly.

I began quoting Gospel of Thomas verses without knowing them.

“Blessed is the lion which becomes man when consumed by man.” I said that to a janitor. He cried.

I asked to leave. They said: “No. You must stay until you are well enough to live outside these walls.”

Journal Fragment Found, "Entry 6"

I am either losing my mind or finding someone else's. Jude said suffering is God inverted. The sewer taught me how silence screams. The ward showed me how sanity bends. I miss the bridge. I miss the rats. But here, beneath the electric hum, I am beginning to remember a question I've always carried: Am I the monkey... or the experiment? I think I might be both. They say I’ll be released soon. But I don’t know which version of me will walk out. And I’m not sure I want to leave.

Journal Fragment: “Monastery of Lost Names, Entry 7”

I no longer trust the mirrors here. They smile before I do. Every evaluation leads to deeper treatment. Every treatment peels off another layer of meaning. Today I painted a door. They called it ‘art therapy.’ I screamed that it was escape. They increased my dosage. I no longer dream rivers. Now I dream systems. The monks in blue gowns hum hymns I swear are equations. Outside these walls might be illusion. But inside… they’re building a new version of me. Piece by piece. I miss the alley. I miss Jude Thomas. I miss my mind.

Billy’s Journal Fragment: “Monastery of Lost Names, Entry 7”

I no longer trust the mirrors here. They smile before I do. Every evaluation leads to deeper treatment. Every treatment peels off another layer of meaning. Today I painted a door. They called it ‘art therapy.’ I screamed that it was escape. They increased my dosage. I no longer dream rivers. Now I dream systems. The monks in blue gowns hum hymns I swear are equations. Outside these walls might be illusion. But inside… they’re building a new version of me. Piece by piece. I miss the alley. I miss Jude Thomas. I miss my mind.