Dark Well of the Night (Nov 9, 2008)

I am treading water at the bottom of a stone well, staring at the moon. I float easily; the water is warm and silken and perfumed with rosemary. Moonlight glints off the quartz of the granite blocks and it’s as if the stars spilled out of the sky, reaching down the rough-hewn walls just to bring their joyous sparkle a little closer to delight me. I lean my head back, let my arms drift on the water’s surface, and my hair swirls around me, caressing my shoulders, my back, my breasts.

I open my eyes as the chill of a dark cloud crosses the moon, and her light dims to a pale shadow. I suddenly know a dark reptilian beast has been waiting for this moment, and it is rushing up from the depths to clamp its jaws on my limbs and drag me down, down, down.

I hold out my shaking palms to the stones above the waterline, drawing heat from them as if from a crackling fire, and the stones slide out to form a narrow ledge. I clamber up on it, shivering, huddling close to the wall, lifting my gaze from the darkness below to the shadows above, willing the moon to appear to save me. I know I am not yet safe, that the beast can easily snatch me from the shelf and take me under. I keep my face lifted to the circle of darkened sky above me and breathe deeply of the cool night air, my last breaths of life. I know it is coming soon.

I hear the wind faintly above, unseen trees whispering the language of the leaves, and I understand the words they are saying, a phrase that has come to me before in times of fear: “and what if he does what if he does what if he does….” I think of sharp fangs and unknown depths and the agony of airless lungs, of desperation and panic (sowhatifhedoes whatifhedoes whatifhedoes), and my breathing slows. So what if he does? I am calmed by the wisdom of the trees, the glitter of dim stars, the gentle caress of night air. I slip my legs into the water, warm against my skin, and slide off the ledge into the water to await the monster of the well.

And then he is there, and his flesh is not scaly, his limbs warm and strong, no foul breath and tearing teeth. It is dark and I cannot see, I inhale deeply and allow the beast to pull me under; down down down, and I cannot see, cannot hear, cannot smell or taste, the anonymous beast dragging me down to his lair, and I relax my screaming lungs and allow the soft water to fill me. I sleep.