Wishing
25 August 1998
There's a girl in the well. A girl in the well, in the green bluebell dell, at the bottom of the garden. For as long as I can remember, she's been there.
Only when I lean far over can I see her. I kneel, and my bare knees stick to the damp grass, my hair falling about my face as I peer. The well is old and tumble down. If a shelter once stood above, it has long since toppled away. The lid, mouldered half to nothing, swarms with wood lice and beetles.
I go to see her almost every day. The water is far down, black as liquid treacle. But when the sun shines at an angle the light hits it, like a silver mirror.
I pick forget-me-nots in the spring, cast their heads into the deep. They leave dimples on the dusty film, move in slow, dreamy circles. The girl comes and goes beneath the surface, pressing her hands to the tense liquid skin as if it is glass. Her hair trails and clouds around her face, mouth breathing bubbles that never break the air.
Sometimes I think she is drowning. I stretch out my arms as if I might save her, pluck her from the icy depths. Other times I think she is swimming, and when I reach out, wanting to break the reflection with my fingers, I dream her hand will catch my wrist and drag me down, drowning me as Hylas was drowned.
She watches me, as I watch her, and she reaches out her arms. She could be beckoning to me. Could believe I am trapped, as I believe her. The ghost of her face shows now and then in the oily darkness, the curves of her body as she turns and twists. I throw grains of sand, pebbles at her, but they vanish without a splash in the black. Sometimes I think she is smiling.
Perhaps I love her, the girl in the well, drifting nymph-like in her element, a seeming guardian at some gate to a world below. But in spite of my dreams and wishes, she is forever beyond my grasp.
Copyright © 25 August 1998
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