The Day the Bridge Fell

Ray Johnston and his best friend Tom, nearing the end of their first year in high school in Melbourne''s vibrant inner-western suburbs, develop a fascination with Melbourne''s new West Gate Bridge. After school, they regularly go to the bustling construction site to talk to the workers and collect mementos from the debris.

To Ray and the community, the bridge symbolizes more than a mere transportation link from the western suburbs to Melbourne''s CBD. It represents progress, superiority and power, filling Ray with immense pride as his father, Doug Johnston, serves as the lead rigger, and his neighbour, George Demetriou, works as an ironworker.

One fateful day, Ray stumbles upon a conversation between a bridge engineer and a foreman. They express serious concern about a buckle in the bridge and discuss plans to loosen the bridge’s bolts the following day. Tormented by this secret, Ray confides in Tom and ultimately decides to share his fears with his father. But his father tells him to keep quiet about it. Although Ray fears for his father’s and George’s safety, he agrees. The next day, shortly before noon, Ray is in his class at school when he hears piercing sirens wailing. He sprints towards the bridge, only to find a scene of utter devastation and chaos. Driven by desperation, he joins the courageous team of workers, relentlessly searching for his father amidst the wreckage—fighting against time to save lives. Hours pass like an eternity as Ray, with his torn and dirt-streaked shirt, abandons his identity as a schoolboy. And then, a glimmer of hope—the unimaginable happens—Ray finds his father alive and well. As months pass, Ray is haunted by the bridge as it hooks his fragmented heart and he refuses to pass it on his way to Tom’s house. Although he feels somewhat older since the accident, it’s not until Ray learns the biggest lesson of all—to forgive himself—that he is finally free. And just like the weathered, stressed and damaged pieces of glass he loves to collect, Ray begins to notice they too can be reshaped and strengthened into something new, ultimately reflecting a new perspective and a new way of looking at the world.

On the cusp of adulthood, the two young friends face their own individual rites of passage as they wrestle with tragedy, justice and a loss of innocence, which will not only define them but change their lives forever.

Reading age of 12+, Interest age 14+ Rhiza Shorts are teen novellas for reluctant readers