The A-Game (new version)

Chapter 13.

"I guess we're going in," I deliberated, heading for the hatch.

   "Wait!" Janice said this at the same time her son said "Are you crazy?"

   "It'll be fine," I assured them in spite of myself. Gripping the railing, I inched my way toward the hatch, where somehow, I managed to open the little door. I indicated for Janice to hand me the flashlight. The white glow reflected a muted white circle onto the black surface of the ominous water. Leading down to the black water was a ladder, and a metal platform that circled the water tower's inside perimeter. Problem? Of course there was a problem. Much alike to the earlier climb up here, the ladder inside bent upside down along the ceiling of the structure, before it sloped downward to the metal scaffolding. Even bigger problem? There wasn't a cage this time. I didn't tell this to Janice. I knew she would refute my going in immediately. My fingers, soft and tender, would be punished sorely this evening. I was fully capable at maneuvering along the monkey bars in elementary school, but it was always with the con of sporting blisters and momentary soreness in my arms. I had week arms and soft hands, adept for drawing and writing, not climbing. Long story short, this was going to suck. Silently, I begged the sweat to be wiped from my hands. I clenched the flashlight in my teeth, and with my fingers fit in the first rung of the ladder below me, I dropped into the hole and let my body pitch forward, the momentum transferring me forward to the next bar. All around me, the concave walls reverberated with the sounds of my movement. I worked quickly. There was no fixing my sprained ankle, and it hurt worse than ever as it waggled limply below me, the bones and joints smashing together with the momentum of each swing. My arm was still sore from being dislocated, and I felt almost as if they'd dislocate again if I kept this up for a while. However, nothing, and I repeat, nothing compared to the pinching of the skin in my hands as I worked from rung to rung.

     Miraculously, I found my way to the vertical end of the ladder, where climbing down was a cake walk compared to what I had just endured. My jaw hurt from clenching the flashlight, but I still had possession of it, and for that I was grateful.

    I moved the orb of white radiance across the still black water, searching for any clue of where the dot might be. Try as I might, flicking my eyes from my phone to the water, all I could conclude, was that it rested somewhere in the middle. The possibility that it was underwater hit me hardest out of all of the other shocks tonight. I didn't know if the water tower would still drain when it seemed as if the rest of Minnesota had shut down completely, but I had seen a movie once, and had watched the whirlpool that formed when it did. Large and colossal, it had no mercy. It wasn't like the tiny whirlpools that formed when emptying a bathtub drain. This one would be a vortex. It would consume me faster than I could yell for help.

    I prayed that it wasn't floating at the far bottom of the water tower. Not only would I be unable to swim that far, what with my leg and my horrible lungs, but I feared the inevitable possibility that the water tower would drain and suck me down with it. Luckily for me, this realized fear caused me to flick the light around the inside with even more urgency, and it caught on something situated on the metal bar of the landing. I limped toward it, my footsteps echoing louder than my heartbeat. When I reached the side of the landing, I saw that it was a piece of rope, knotted at the bottom of rail and falling at an angle into the black water below. I pulled at it, hoping that whatever situated would come up, but the rope remained taut under my fingers. I figured it was due to the pressure of the water, until I saw the other ends of rope tied on the other side. There were three ends of the rope, all stretched taut as they extended toward the water. They were situated evenly with the purpose, I realized, of keeping the object beneath the water situated in the middle. With relief it was justified that I wouldn't have to swim, but rather untie two ends of the rope and pull the object up by it's last.