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In the Well When I was growing up in Virginia, there was an old abandoned well not far from our house. As a small boy, I used to sit somewhat precariously near the edge and throw stones into its gaping mouth to see if I could hear them hit the bottom. What seemed like an eternity would pass before the sound of splashing water would echo up out of the cold, damp uncertainty of the hole. I would ask anyone who passed by to peer into the well and tell me what they could see. The answer was always the same. "It's too dark down there to see much of anything, Neal. Why are you so curious about it anyway? It's just an old well." I remember that day in the fifth grade when I learned just enough about the rate of falling bodies to rush home, collect a pile of rocks, and toss them, one by one, into the well, counting what I hoped were seconds while they fell. I also discovered that after a hard rain, the splash of the stones in the water below had a much fuller sound. And when it was dry, when the air in your mouth felt dusty when you breathed and the grass crackled beneath your feet, the sound of the water seemed to have a higher pitch. If you crept cautiously on your stomach up to the very edge and sang "hello" into the damp and musty smelling air that surrounded your mouth, the singing echo would fold back upon itself as it floated up and up until it surrounded you with its song. A few days before my twelfth birthday, my father made arrangements to have the well filled in. He was afraid some of the children in the neighborhood might fall in. I begged and pleaded with him to leave it just the way it was. "Oh, I'm not worried about you falling in," he said, "It's the other children I'm concerned about. They don't have the same respect for it that you do." "But how will I ever know how deep it is, or what's down there, if it's all covered up with dirt?" "Tell you what," he said laying down his shovel, "If you promise not to be sad when it's all filled in, I'll let you discover what's there for yourself." He got a long piece of rope and secured one end to a big oak tree close to the well. The other end he wound around my waist and under my arms, carefully tying the knot so it wouldn't come undone. Picking me up in his arms, he walked to the edge of the well and gently lowered me over the side. The cool, damp, unknown world below engulfed my feet, my waist, my chest, and finally, my head. As my face dropped below the level of the ground, the warmth of the sun on the back of my neck abruptly disappeared. The sounds from above grew muffled and faint and then disappeared altogether. I was dangling at the end of a rope in the center of a new and different world. An earthy odor hung about my nose. The air was thick and still and at first somewhat hard to breathe. It clung to my face and hair, and penetrated even into my jeans. I could hear the presence of the walls all around me, much as I have done since while walking through a tunnel, but these walls were much closer and seemed to completely enclose me. When I sucked in my breath to sing "hello", the mere inhalation of air echoed back to me from somewhere far below. When the "hello" finally came, it was like a choir of voices all sounding exactly like my own, spiraling up from the bottom of the well and ricocheting off the sides in all directions. I reached a damp hand into my jeans and pulled out a smooth, round stone. I held it for a moment between my thumb and forefinger, and then with a sense of mounting excitement, I let it slip from my grasp. It twice struck the rock walls beneath me before it plunged into the water below. The sound of the impact seemed hollow and somewhat disquieting as I realized for the first time how far above the bottom I really was. I pulled another rock from my pocket and sent it on its way. Two full seconds elapsed before its flat smooth surface struck the water with a slap that sent shivers along the back of my neck. I reached out a cautious hand toward the wall. A layer of wet, coarse moss clung to the side. I pulled away a few handfuls to feel what lay beneath. The moss made a soft swishing sound as it slithered down the side of the well in slow pursuit of my two stones. I placed my nose against the bare earth. The smell was strangely sweet and full of pleasure. I was just reaching out to explore the opposite wall, when I heard the squeak of the rope against the side of the well, and I felt myself slowly being pulled up toward the sounds of birds and the warmth of the sun. "Okay," I said, as my father loosened the knot and unwound the rope from around my waist, "now you can cover it up." For weeks after my adventure in the well, the neighborhood children would crowd around me, and in voices hot with envy they would want to know, "What was it like down there? What did you find? Weren't you afraid?" They clamored after my father to put them on the end of the rope and lower them into the magic world that I had described. But they who had stood at the edge and peered wide-eyed into the darkness, seeing nothing, can no longer go where I have gone. They can only stand on the slightly uneven ground above where the well used to be, and wish.