Remembering The Pit
Days like are these are particularly hard. I have no special project, no important place to go, so my mind wanders. I sit with my coffee, enjoying the beauty of the trees and birds, but I can't stop remembering.
A shaft of light comes through the trees and strikes my table and mind races back to the concrete pit with the well head in it. I remember the light poking it's way through holes and gaps in the wooden cover. I remember trying to crawl up the walls. But seven year old hands aren't strong enough to crawl out of my prison, young legs are not long enough to reach.
So I stop trying. I sit and I cry and I wait. I could have screamed but no one would have heard me. I had done everything he had demanded. I had bent and turned and knelt and begged and pleaded. I pulled my pants up and thought we would be done for the day. Then he tells me to go to the back yard. He lifts the lid and with one strong arm drops me in then covers the 4x4 pit once more.
I don't remember how long it took me to realize I could stand on the pipes and just reach the top of the bricks. I use the the top of my head to lift the cover as I crawl out. As I walk in the front door, my mother is in her recliner. She looks at me only long enough to say you stink and need a bath. He is there smiling as if nothing had happened. She then tells him to put me in the tub. I was wrong, this day is not over.
A shaft of light comes through the trees and strikes my table and mind races back to the concrete pit with the well head in it. I remember the light poking it's way through holes and gaps in the wooden cover. I remember trying to crawl up the walls. But seven year old hands aren't strong enough to crawl out of my prison, young legs are not long enough to reach.
So I stop trying. I sit and I cry and I wait. I could have screamed but no one would have heard me. I had done everything he had demanded. I had bent and turned and knelt and begged and pleaded. I pulled my pants up and thought we would be done for the day. Then he tells me to go to the back yard. He lifts the lid and with one strong arm drops me in then covers the 4x4 pit once more.
I don't remember how long it took me to realize I could stand on the pipes and just reach the top of the bricks. I use the the top of my head to lift the cover as I crawl out. As I walk in the front door, my mother is in her recliner. She looks at me only long enough to say you stink and need a bath. He is there smiling as if nothing had happened. She then tells him to put me in the tub. I was wrong, this day is not over.
