He sits on the side of the bridge. Every day, he is there with a cup of coffee, a croissant, and a loaf of bread. Just as dawn is breaking. Nobody knows where he sleeps, where he buys his coffee or bread. He might be homeless, but he is clean-shaven and immaculately neat. He wears the same green coat and black trousers every day. The bread is always different, although it’s never the plastic-wrapped supermarket kind, and he never takes his coffee the same way two days in a row.

He has been doing this as long as the old men who play chess in the park by the bridge can remember. He is on his way to becoming as big a tourist attraction as the Eiffel Tower. Come see the man who doesn’t move! He feeds the ducks all day! But there is something both intriguing and calming about him.

He doesn’t look at the ducks, and he doesn’t look at the gawking tourists, He stares into the distance wistfully, and never looks away.

It is raining. His coffee is watered down, the bread he drops mechanically into the lake soggy. Even the irrepressible chess players have gone inside, but for the man to be gone is as inconceivable as for the Eiffel Tower to duck into a café to get out of the rain.

A woman in a blue raincoat stops next to him. He does not look towards her. She swings her legs over the railing to perch next to him, and lowers her hood. His head whips around in surprise, for the first time in more years than even he can remember.

“You came after all,” he says, his voice rusty. He hasn’t talked since the first time he sat on the railing.

“You told me to meet you here,” she responds.

“A little late, don’t you think?” he asks, although without bitterness.

“I came. I saw you sitting on the rail. I knew what you were thinking. You were going to jump,” she accused him.

“It’s a duck pond!”

“I know you. You would have thought it a fitting death.”

His shoulders slumped. “Yes,” he whispered, “You know me. One cannot stop the thoughts in one’s head. But I had two tickets in my pocket. One for you and one for me.”

“I thought you meant to say goodbye.”

“I never wanted to say goodbye.”

“And now?” she asks tentatively.

“I think we might have missed the boat by now.”

“Yes.” They sit in silence for a moment.

“…Goodbye,” he says with a wistful finality.

“Goodbye,” she says sadly. She swings deftly back onto the bridge, and walks out of sight along the rainy cobblestone road.

The man sighs and climbs back onto the bridge, chucking the rest of the loaf carelessly into the pond. He trudges along the misty street, passing windows full of light. Finally he reaches a café with the door propped open, spilling light and voices into the cold street. He walks inside and sits quietly at a table in the corner. Everyone cranes their heads, and the chatter doubles. They wonder what the famous Bridge Man is doing inside. Somebody jokes that they’d better start brewing a very large cup of coffee for the Eiffel Tower.

Somebody orders a cup of coffee and hands it to the man. He looks up, and speaks to a stranger for the first time in forty years.

“Thank you.”