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The Echoless Well
(Pdf can be found below.)
he well in the village square had been dry for as long as
anyone remembered.
Children played there, dropping stones to wait for the echo that never came.
The villagers said it was useless and drank from other wells.
One evening, after the others had gone home, a boy lingered.
His name was
Aric. The strangely silent well called to him.
So he climbed into the bucket and lowered himself, hands tight on the
rope,
the wood and pulley gently groaning as he descended.
At first there was only dark. Then a shimmer. The deeper he went, the cooler the air became, until he realized he was no longer descending — but rising.
Below him was not earth at all, but a sky without bottom, a sea of stars shining up through the mouth of
the well.
For a few minutes he watched rain fall
upward, spashing in puddles over his head. And birds flew upside
down with calm, unhurried wings, as the moon shone far beneath his
feet.
Then he pulled himself and the bucket back “up” to his village.
When he climbed out, everything looked ordinary again. The square, the roofs, the cobbled street.
Except that nothing looked ordinary at all. Ever again.
The illusion was broken — the illusion of thinking he knew what how the 'real' really works.
He no longer hurried past the sagging roofs or the grit between the
cobblestones, nor dismissed the other children’s laughter
as only laughter.
Even his own breath felt like a mystery he didn't understand at all.
For Aric had seen with his own eyes that the world was far greater, and far stranger, than he — or anyone else — could possibly imagine.
—William Zeitler
2025 August 26
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“The Echoless Well” is found in Stories from GrailHeart, Vol. 1, available for purchase here.