Almost, almost it felt like she had drowned her own mother. Then the woman had called in a panic to know whether Iris was alright and what she would do about the computer. So far as Iris cared, though, the laptop was gone. She was not going to go swimming for it, and besides that, it would be waterlogged and destroyed.
The next thing to go was her old socks, which had been on purpose, though she pretended otherwise. It wasn't littering so far as it wasn't on purpose, and socks decompose...right? Either way, they were old, and she wanted to be rid of them. So off the bridge they went.
Over time, Iris added her old college textbooks, an ex-boyfriend's ball cap, a stupid collection of rocks, three pairs of sunglasses, her bra (on a particularly fun night), a coffee mug and the coffee inside it, and some carrots she hadn't wanted to eat. It was so relieving, throwing things off that bridge and into the river, that she bought the house nearby and just stayed put.
Most annoying, of course, was when items would wash back up on the shores in her yard. It defeated the whole point. She always threw them back in and, except for the bra, every one of them left.
The bra haunted her, though. It was a pale blue one with yellow lace trim from Victoria's Secret, and it just would not leave, no matter how many times she tried. Iris had had no choice but to hang it from some wire beneath the bridge, hidden from view of the house and out of the water's treacherous reach.
But she knew it was there. The stupid thing wouldn't let her walk across the bridge without thinking about it, and every time she checked, there it was, hanging, there. There and never going to leave her truly alone.
The next course of action, then, was to get high on caffeine, tear down the bra, which busted one of its straps, and wear it with nothing else while swimming in the river. This would absolve her of all crime, she was sure, by showing acceptance of both the river and the bra. It would then have no unfinished business and could leave her to herself.
That didn't work, either.
It was upsetting enough that she stopped visiting the bridge altogether. Iris rehung it under the bridge after its last visit to her home shores and avoided the area. It was more than she could handle.
When the bra showed up on her bank again, even though she had last seen it hanging safely from its wire, Iris gave up. She screamed for all she was worth and flung the bra as far downriver as she could, then ran away. To Louisiana. She's still trying to sell the house, if you're interested. It's got a nice gabled roof and a few flowers coming up near the front door.
(Honestly, I was going to write some fiction about someone attempting suicide, but my attempt didn't work out and this did. Something silly for your day.)
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