by Eve Rifkah
She doesn’t know how it happened, her body harshly picked up and flung – just like that. On a cloudless day, well everyday had been cloudless for so long they’d forgotten what clouds look like; what rain feels like.
Into the well she went tumbling past the dusty stone walls. Hitting the bottom with a heavy womp. The scream pulled from her throat rattled up the well. She moves each arm and leg searching for something wrong but all bones seem intact. The dust settling on her dress and skin makes her cough a hacking cough. Oh My.
Looking up she sees the blue sky as blue as her father’s eyes. Sees her dad looking down then shudder as he walks away. She screams come back, don’t leave me.
Maybe now the rains will return. As it is written in the old book. A sacrifice to the gods of rain, water, life. The father had read the book to her. But she never believed that he would sacrifice her, his only daughter. That year the cattle died. Their bones stretched their too tight skin, their empty eyes lost all hope before the final breath.
The fields turned to dust, rose into waves that blocked the sun. Why didn’t we pack up and leave as did so many of their neighbors? Did her father really believe that old book? What sort of god wants a man to kill his child?
She touches the stones rising high above her. Tries to find places for fingers and toes to grab. Gets a few feet up then nothing to hold, she slides back down into the hollow of this prison. Is this what she was born for, to perish in a dry well? No, she screams, cries for help. Hopes her mother, brothers can hear. Or have they been duped by her father’s delusions? She cries herself raw, no moisture for tears.
Is the sky growing dark? Perhaps rain clouds? The darkness increases to nearly night except it is mid-day. A whoosh and a howl scream by. A fine grit pours down over her. No rain here. But more fine dust. Her skin itches, her eyes squinched closed. Her life has become one big irritation shuddering to pain. Dust to dust. Her faded blue dress now grey. The dust heavy. She tries to stand to shake off the shroud that covers her.
Tries to climb the soft sand to only sink instead of rise. Recalls the fable of the crow dropping pebbles into a tall thin jar to raise the water level, to be able to drink. She removes her dress, drapes it over the piling sand. Slowly leans over it to raise her body a few inches more. If she can keep on doing this perhaps, just perhaps she can reach the top. Exhausted from trying she falls into sleep.
In the morning her father peeks over the edge of the well. Sees a bit of cloth, a dusty hand, fingers stretched taut. He searches the sky horizon to horizon, sees only dull brown dust suspended in air. Nothing has changed. He shakes his fist and calls to a deaf god, the ache of sorrow ripping his heart. His wife packs what little is left, grabs the boys and hitches a ride with a neighbor heading west.
Eve Rifkah was co-founder of Poetry Oasis, Inc. a non-profit poetry association. Founder, and editor of DINER, a literary journal. She is the 2021 recipient of the Stanley Kunitz award and lives in Worcester, MA. The play, Outcasts the Lepers of Penikese Island, was based on her first book, Outcasts. She has 6 books. Webpage: eve-rifkah.com
