The Well Fall

The Ninth Life

Mother always warned me: never peer into a well. She said spirits lived there, waiting to spin your head until you tumbled in. I never believed her—until the day I fell.

‘Not again!’ I thought, tossing on my old parched-reed mat, my solitude bed.

“It can’t be morning yet,” I whispered. The cock had just crowed; it must be still dark outside.

I was wrong. Voices drifted from the distance: birds sang, goats bleated, women laughed at their gossip, and men’s chatter and sharp calls filled the air. Footsteps approached rapidly. I held my breath.

Suddenly, the door creaked open.

“Marcus!”

“Uh!” I opened one eye by degree. The light pierced directly into the brain. I snapped it shut again. I licked my lower lip. It was sore, bloody, salty, and tasted like slow death. My teeth were sticky with blood, and my mouth smelled like old rot. My intestines surged to my chest and I swallowed the overwhelming urge to throw up. I opened the other eye. The sunlight smudged its outline into haze, but I knew that shadow.

“You fought again?” My Mom asked after seeing my swollen mouth. “Wake up. It’s noon already. Wells will get depleted.” I didn’t answer. “Your friends are waiting outside. Get up!” She slammed the maize-stalk door behind her. I jeered inwardly, still stung by yesterday’s defeat. I had lost a fight to a boy my own age. My sore lips still hurt.

She spared me the line I hated: “Your father was the most industrious man in the village.” I sighed in relief.

I got up, folded my mat, and leaned it against the wall. I couldn’t bear to let my family down again, not that day.

Standing before a half-mirror, I felt my heart race as I stared at myself. I was emaciated; eyes sunken, bones sharp beneath the skin, hair turning brown, arms thin and long. With panic, I turned away. “I’m better than the other boys,” I told myself. ‘They don’t call me pumpkin cheeks for no reason.’

I grabbed the two twenty-liter jerrycans and walked to the well. True to her words, Makur and Agany were waiting under the acacia tree. They were my closest friends from the Kuenybar Village. Makur, the oldest, once rescued me from a bully who tried to steal my water. That memory always bound me to him.

It was during the dog days of February, the fiercest month of heat. The sun had burned everything dry. The trees were bare, the ground cracked, and the wind carried dust that stung our eyes. We trudged barefoot through the scorched ground in search of water. Our feet were an eyesore to look at for a second. Yet, in the middle of all this harshness, we had Agany. He was our master storyteller. He could weave laughter out of misery. With every joke and tale, he pulled us from the heat and set us laughing animatedly.

From a distance, we saw the swamp, Loul-Nget. This is where we swam, fished, and dug wells in summer. I remembered the morning I speared my thigh with a harpoon. Others had stabbed snakes or encountered alligators. That month, it was dry, and there were several wells.

About thirty older boys sat under an acacia near the swamp. They were playing games. They had modeled clay cows, pretended to graze them, then raid and defend them. They eyed us coldly, and we shrank away.

We hurried to our well, hoping our water was safe. Shock met us: the well was empty. Six or seven gigantic frogs squatted below. We stared at each other blankly.

“Hey, Marcus!” Aweng’s dazzling eyes caught mine. She was tall, older than me, her body still straight and boyish. Yet, she turned heads whenever she passed. My heart leapt. ‘What is she doing here?’ She once tried to drown me in a pool. Her eyes went straight to my lips. I covered my mouth and just realized it didn’t help. My friends thought she liked me. Makur and I thought she was a monster.

“Come fetch your water here. I promised your mom I’d help,” she said, winking.

“That’s odd,” Agany croaked.

“She’s right. Let’s go,” Makur snapped back.

We sat around her well, chanting as we fetched. Agany shot me a look: I can’t believe you listened to her. I shrugged: We’re just after water.

I swung my legs on the well’s edge. “This is deep, huh?” I muttered. Dropping a stone, I counted. “Seven seconds.” Makur ignored me. I tried again with a larger stone.

“What are you doing, silly boy? Don’t anger the snakes,” he whispered.

Snakes? My mother had warned me: spirits in wells could make your head spin until you fell. Now snakes, too?

“Do snakes—”

“Snake! Snake! Python!” Aweng screamed, hurling stones into the well. Her eyes were wide with terror.

Makur jumped back. Panic surged through me. I wanted to run and jump at the same time. My legs betrayed me. My right foot found only air. My left followed. I was flying—falling—at terrible speed. I clawed at the walls, but they were slick. Seconds later, I crashed into the abyss–my sudden and unknown destination.

SPLASH!

Good God! Water. Waist-deep, icy, black. Everything stopped, a statue, and lifeless all around me. Frogs croaked from the cracks. One deliberately leapt over my head, missing me by inches. Pleased by itself, it started to croak noisily. I shuddered in fear, as my heart throbbed thunderously.

Then it came, the unpleasant sound. A growl, faint but rising, curling from the depths beneath my feet. The water stirred, thick bubbles rolled up from below. They burst against my chest. I dared not move, but something was moving; slow, deliberate, alive, right beneath me. I lifted one foot, trembling, and the water shivered in answer. The other foot was stuck in the mud. ‘There are snakes down here.’ My hair stood on end. I was as good as dead.

I looked up. The mouth of the well was a pinhole far above. Shadows of people were milling around the well with hundreds of eyes peering at me helplessly. I was trapped. Aweng’s voice screamed my name.

‘Your end!’ My mind was playing tricks on me. ‘Hopeless, naughty boy?!’ It was getting louder.

“Climb! Climb!” voices urged from above. I dug my fingers into the wall, wedged a foot into a crevice. I climbed. I didn’t want to be called a fraidy-cat by my friends for not climbing out of the well. A moment later, I slipped, crashing back. Excruciating pain seared my spine. My hands bled.

‘Heading nowhere, child!’ Indeed, something was talking in the trembling walls. They trembled, as if ready to bury me alive. My energy ebbed. I was sinking. The water was around my neck. ‘Mom must know this. She can save me.’

“Mamaa!Mamaa!” I screamed, fists clenched, tears flooding my cheeks. But my voice only echoed back. Still, I felt Mom didn’t hear me. I yelped again.

“Give me your hand, mouny,” came a godsend voice above, calm and absolute after what felt like an eternity.

I looked up. A shadow stretched its arm. I raised my hand. He gripped my wrist and hauled me like a feather. Other hands caught me, passing me upward. A final boy bent low, offering his shoulders.

My head emerged into the light. Faces and smiles blurred before my teary eyes. I stumbled onto the muddy ground, shivering but alive. I looked like something the cat dragged in. The fear in my intestines subsided. A moment later, ten boys leapt out after me. I thanked them breathlessly.

“You have nine lives,” Makur smirked.

“This bastard is crazy,” Agany laughed, pointing at me. “Mamaa!” he teased, and they all roared with laughter. I joined in the laughter, and for a moment, I didn’t mind. Yet within me, freedom felt like a dream too fragile to believe.