The Well

The nurse and I walked into his room, quietly closing the door behind us. The pale fluorescent lighting flooded the room a faded grey as the machines beeped rhythmically. He was wearing one of the hospital gowns underneath the pile of blankets meant to keep him warm. He was terribly thin; no amount of cloth could hide his bony cheeks, his whispy hair, his weak breath.

"How much longer does he have?" I whispered to the nurse. She looked at his chart, but we both knew that was unneeded.

"Not much. He's been drifting in and out for a week now and there isn't anything the doctor can do that won't push him over the edge." she replied back. I could feel her eye bore into me, hearing the unasked question. Why weren't you here soon?

"I've been away" I answer back, hating myself for the defensive lie.I knew it was weak and that she saw right through it, but it didn't really matter. She shrugged and handed me a sealed letter. To John it said, addressed to me.

"He wrote this in case he..." she said, leaving his fate unsaid. She tugged the blanket higher up on him and then turned to go. I almost reached out to stop her but...and then she was gone out of the room, leaving us two alone.

I paused for a bit, holding the envelope in my hands before moving over to sit in a nearby chair. I sat watching his unmoving face, tracing the tired wrinkles with my eyes. Will that be me, I wondered, ten or twenty years from now? The echos of life-support seemed to magnify the silence. I tried to say something to kill that deafening stillness but each time the words withered on my lips.

Finally I turned to the letter in my hands, quickly popping it open and unfolding the papers inside. My Son it began

I wish I did not have to write this, but the chance to talk with you again may not come. Even if I don't know the lingo, I know my body. I am dying and there is no rebound, no recovery this time. My affairs are in order and I have been preparing for this since my first positive test result. But this is not about my estate.

We have never been on good terms. By the time that I was recovered enough from your mother's death, you were already grown. We met as strangers, barely knowing myself better than you did. I have tried reaching out but...we both know how that went. I don't believe you ever forgave me for abandoning you but I could not trust myself to raise you, much less anyone else trusting me. I do not regret that decision, only my own weakness for having to make it.

Like many in my situation, I have been pondering my past days, pouring over every detail and regretting my mistakes. It was the memory of three dreams that compelled me to write this letter. These dreams were unlike any I've ever had and it is only because of the third that I am writing this.

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I grew up in a situation like yourself. My parents died early in my life from a storm that they were unprepared for. I was raised by my disinterested aunt in a decaying apartment with no friends and few company. It was in this situation that at the age of ten I had the first dream. I had found myself walking down a dim hallway, pictures and statues of kings and hero's surrounding me. Everything waved around me; it was like seeing and walking through water. And then I came to the Well.

It was not a well of water but of souls. There was nothing but this pit in the ground with those who had fallen in swirling around, plunging down into nothing. I knew I heard nothing of sound but there was this ethereal wail; a siren's call that beckoned me to join those down below. I felt no ill will from the maw that was the Well, but I knew that to fall would be my destruction. I stood near the edge, wanting to fall in. But something inside me grounded me and refused to let me go. It was during this falling and grounding that I woke up. I forgot most of the details, but it lingered in mind.

It was not until your mother skidded off of the road in that blizzard did the Well return. After the accident, I fell apart. The second dream was recurring, of me standing next to the edge of that vortex. I tempted myself, told myself that it didn't matter if I fell in and joined those already damned. I wouldn't feel her touch, her warmth, see her smile anymore. But each time I was about to let go, I saw you in her arms and the future we would have had, her eyes shining from your face. I could not let myself go nor could I let you go.

The final dream, the one that made this letter happen, occurred soon after I got the cancer test results. I saw the end coming and I knew I could not escape the Well this time. I dreaded it, trying almost anything to fool myself that it wasn't possible. But after another attempt to hide in a bottle, I visited the Well one last time. The walls like water, the unearthly wails,the countless figures falling.

But instead of being at the edge I was back away with someone else on the edge. It seemed like it was the first dream, my younger self ready to drop in. They seemed to lean over the edge, as if the slightest breath would knock them over and away forever. My own fear of my fate screamed at me to run, to turn away. But even in the midst of cowardice I walked forth, firmly placed my hand on his shoulder and whispered something into his ear. I don't know what I said but it not only turned him away from the edge, but gave soothed me as well. I've woken up unafraid since.

These dreams may seem like delusions or ravings of a mad man, but from them all I have learned one thing: you are not alone. I love you and will continue loving you with your mother from beyond. I have not fallen down the Well, and neither will you.

I hear a soft rustle and see him awake, looking at me reading his letter. He says nothing, but his eyes says it all.

We stare at each other, neither saying a word as our emotions conflict. I had left my anger behind long ago, but I still couldn't bring myself to connect all these years. This was my last chance.

Remembering the pressure on my shoulder and the chill of the Glock against my temple years ago, I repeat the words that saved me.

"There's nothing to fear. There's nothing to doubt."

My father gently smiled, closed his eyes, and breathed out for the last time in peace.