When my sons were first born, I thought I should be a happy man. I mean: five! Who could not help but be a happy man?! My darling Rebecca, she gave birth to five boys all at once. Well, not all at once: it took her all the night. But right in a row, she gave them. Five to me! I thought I should burst! But my darling Rebecca, after giving me so much, she gave up the last thing she had left, and she died before I even had her in my arms. And then, again, I thought I should burst. I could not hold back from weeping. Five sons or no, how could I ever survive without her?
Five sons! That’s a big job now. And not a woman in sight! That’s another one. And plus, it’s not easy, living as we do. I’m not a wealthy man, though I’m not a poor one. But it’s hard, being who we are, and surrounded by so many people who don’t know. We have to hide it. No one must ever know the magic I have inside of me, or the secrets I’ve been entrusted with. No one must ever know about the Well.
The Well. It’s a kind of pot my father brought back when he was in Egypt. Egypt? That’s from when the family was very rich. Soon after the Well entered our lives, all that changed. I can’t really describe how big it is, because that depends entirely on the occasion. We first understood a little of it’s nature after he brought it home and unwrapped it from it’s dusty clothing. I was 20 at the time, and I had just met my Rebecca. My father hadn’t been sure exactly what he’d discovered when he found it. It had been late at night and he stumbled on it as he was hurrying in to the last packing of his things before entering the airplane. It was about half as high as his knee then, and it looked valuable. So he wrapped it in a dusty piece of travel cloth and packed it with the rest.
He unwrapped it when he came home. He had to. A light was shining from the thing like someone had left a candle burning inside it the entire trip. We were afraid the house would catch fire! And looking inside the pot, there was no candle. Only a hole. A bright hole. And reaching inside it, just when my arm was all the way in, my finger scratched the bottom. And came back with a ring on the end of it. The kind of ring made just for engagements. And I knew immediately who that ring was for.
I don’t think my father ever knew what I first brought out of the Well. At least, he kept on asking where I got money for that ring. I certainly hadn’t earned it! But on the other hand, it may be that he only wanted always to remind me that it was a gift from the source of our troubles. When my father reached in, he pulled out a fresh cooked turkey, and that was certainly good enough for him, and twice good enough for his wife.
But it wasn’t what came out of the Well that made it so terrible. It was those things that would not come out of it. It seemed the Well only gave what it wanted to give, and only when it wanted to. But we could never manage to bring ourselves to get rid of it, or to tell anyone else of it’s existence. In time, we came to regard it as our sacred trust, given to us by God, or some other unseen force, a well of purity in a land of rust and dryness. We came to regard ourselves as special and enchanted because of the things we had seen inside of it. For the Well was a portal into a world of blazing beauty.
Inside that thing was the kind of food that people here have only dreamed of eating. Down there was an obvious peace that transcended the presence of the mind. And as we looked into it more often we became more and more attuned to a kind of beauty that at least I had never imagined. It would never fail that I would come home, or even get up, and there would always be someone with their face near stuck into that pot, and they would look up at me, their eyes glistening with tears. It was just too wonderful.
So there was no help for my father. I came home one day, when I knew there’d been an especially bad day trading. Father had lost most of his fortune by then anyway, but it must have been enough. There was a note: We are leaving. Follow us someday. When I found the Well, it was about the size of two of my hands. And looking inside of it, there, at the bottom, was one of our ladders. One end had been mangled into a single piece by an unimaginable force. Beside the Well were six bars of gold and three silver, and two more rings, the kind made for marrying. A small trade for the loss of my father and his wife.
Careful not to look into it again, I found a box and placed it inside. I nailed it shut. I went and found the woman I had asked to become my wife. I showed her the rings and told her about the Well. She didn’t believe me, of course. Not until I showed her. I had to unnail it from it’s coffin, and when she looked inside, it was I who had to pull her away. Don’t look too long, I said, unless you want to end up down there! So I nailed it again and placed the box in the furthest recess of our warehouse. The gold and silver I placed in another chest in another place. I couldn’t bring myself to melt the gold, or trade them, or use them for capital. They were too beautiful. Each bar had writing on it in a language I couldn’t understand and strange designs that, I was sure, if I sat there long enough, I could fit them together into a single picture. I never did, though. I placed them in their box, and locked it. I never looked again. Too much time had already been wasted in pouring over a world that wasn’t ours. I was weak, though. A stronger man would have done more damage, been more thorough. But I couldn’t do it. Our family must ever be with both feet planted in one world, though our heart is in another.
So then. I was twenty-five when my father and his wife ran away, twenty-five when I was married. And I was thirty-two when my Rebecca gave me five first-born sons, thirty-two when she died. I said before I was not as wealthy as I should have been, though I was not as poor as I can remember. And then, all at once: five sons, and no one to help me! I determined what I would do. I named my sons in order: Abraham, Isaac, Samuel, David, and Solomon. In our family, Abraham must always be the first son. My name is Abraham, as was my father’s. And, of course, his father is also Abraham. And until me, Abraham was the only son. A pitiful calling: to be named a father of so many and to be continually, generation and again, the father of only one. Until me. Rebecca gave me five! And then she left me, unable to care for them without her. I went back to the warehouse, undusted and unnailed the coffin of the Well and brought it out. I placed my sons in baskets, and one by one I lowered them into the Well. To each of them I gave a slip of paper with their names on it, and to each of them I gave a prayer. First went Solomon, then David, then Samuel and Isaac. Which left me with my eldest, Abraham. One son I could take care of. One son would inherit our secret. And though the world may continually laugh at Abraham Bright and his generations of single sons, I know that I have four other Bright young boys, living in a world of perfect paradise!
The Well I placed back in its coffin, nailed it shut again, placed it back in the furthest recess of the warehouse. These notes I am placing in the box of gold and silver bars. For my own son, Abraham. No doubt, when I am gone, he will perform an inventory of the fortune I will have built and he will discover this box, that crate. And he will know of his brothers and realize the secret our family must keep, to have both feet in one world, though our heart is in another.
Abraham Bright
Eighth in generation
1962
neumatikos 