The Wishing Well

Growing up in my small town, there was a song that every child would sing.

I don't know how I know it. I don't know how I learned it. I just knew it one day. I have no memories of my parents singing me to sleep with it. I have no memories at all of my parents singing it.

They hadn't grown up where I did.

The first time that I sang it, I was playing at the park with some other kids my age-kids I don't even remember the names of now. We were in the sandbox, and I just started singing it. They joined in with me as if we were singing some popular song we had all heard on the radio.

Thinking back on it now, I assume that their parents sang it to them-I have memories of my childhood best friend-Annie's mother singing it to us one day as we baked cookies.

Up until very recently, I always thought it was just a song. One of those creepy lullabies that children love to sing. It was about a Wishing Well. I honestly didn't know what a wishing well was until I went away to college a few years ago.

My campus had one.

Old and moldy, it was the star of many of my nightmares during freshmen year.

My roommates would tease me about it. I get it. I really do. Now at least. Back then, I was so angry with them. But . . . if I were them . . . I probably would have teased me too.

During my freshmen year, I refused to walk through the courtyard it was in, even though it was a common shortcut to some of my classes.

During the first semester of my sophomore year, I could go into the courtyard, but I had to stay close to the buildings. After we finished taking finals that year, my 'friends' decided it would be funny to push me into the well.

My fear of the thing went away when I climbed out completely unscathed. My skin hadn't melted off, and I still had all of my hair, and my heart still beat within my chest-no matter how erratically it was beating, it was still there.

By junior year I was eating lunch in the courtyard, and my senior year, I would sometimes look down into its shallow depths and wonder if it was the same Wishing Well the song spoke of.

It wasn't until after I graduated that I actually used the wishing well.

I had just graduated with my degree in business, and had an internship set up with a fairly decent company on the other side of the city. I had an apartment I lived alone in-all thanks to my parents being the owners of the building. I had friends that I could hang out with whenever I wanted.

As far as the world was concerned, I had my life figured out and ready for me to live it.

In reality, however, my best friend-Debbie-was moving across the country to start med school, and my boyfriend had left me for a high schooler. I could barely get out of bed-even breathing felt far too much of a chore at times.

All in all, I felt more alone than I ever had before in my life.

The night I made my wish, was a mistake.

It should have never happened.

The day started out fine. I graduated, had lunch with my family, dinner with my friends, and then went clubbing with them, too. I hadn't drunk anything that night, as I was the Designated Driver, so I was completely sober, and completely unable to sleep as I listened to Debbie vomiting and heard Chris rub her back and hold her hair.

I was confused, as to why I couldn't sleep. Normally I didn't leave my bed unless it was for school, food, or being forced into hanging out with my friends.

The night I made a wish, I decided to go for a walk. I guess I justified it as: it was my last night on campus; why not explore and relive some memories?

I ended up not paying attention to where I was going. I ended up in front of the shallow wishing well in that broken off courtyard in the center of campus. For the first time in my life-when it came to that wishing well-I said screw it.

I wanted to make a wish.

What was the worst thing that could happen to me?

I dug around in my pockets for some change-I never cleaned out my pockets and always found change in the washing and drying machines.

I could only find a quarter.

I almost backed out of it then and there, but . . . really. It was a stupid song. How horrible could it be?

I flicked the quarter off of my pointer finger-the way I had seen other students do it-and made my wish.

It was simple: I wanted a friend I could trust with everything and would never leave me.

I had felt proud of myself . . . at first. I had conquered my fear of a stupid inanimate object. I could do anything. I would rock my internship, and I would get my dream job, and life would be great.

That optimism faded when the quarter hit the still surface of the water and sank to the bottom to lie with other coins. It was with the imagined chink of my quarter hitting the others that the lyrics to that stupid children's song ran through my head.

A penny for your thoughts
A nickel for your heart
A dime for a wish
A quarter for your soul

Beware, beware the Wishing Well
For you will always pay
Beware, beware the Wishing Well
It's side you'll always lose

The Wishing Well, the Wishing Well
Use it wise or it will tell
The Wishing Well, the Wishing Well
Beware the Wishing Well

A penny for your thoughts
A quarter for your soul

Only when the water had fallen still again, did I realize that the words weren't inside of my head.

Someone was singing them into my ear.