1.3: The Voice in the Well

In 1989, the Trinity Broadcasting Network released a story about scientists discovering Hell in Russia. The story goes that scientists had drilled a hole deep into the pit of the Earth, straight into a hollow cavern. They say the temperature there measured over 2000 degrees, and when the scientists lowered microphones down into the hole, they heard the screaming of a million tortured souls.

Of course, the “Well to Hell” story is a hoax. It had already been told multiple times before TBN, morphing through various versions, since the publication of an article in 1984 about the very real and very un-damned Kola Superdeep Borehole. Besides, we all know evil is often much quieter than shrieking hellfire.

But you should also know, somewhere in the world, there is a well that reaches into the heart of the earth. It’s said to contain the darkness to make way for a world that needed light. The well was first created before the world began, back when Time was still learning to walk. For as far back as people can remember, a thick iron seal has always covered the well. This is all we need to know anyway, since even Time can’t remember when the well was freely gaping maw in the earth.

A small village used to surround the well. The people there were innocent and kind. They didn’t know how to be anything else. Eventually, after generations upon generations had passed, the task of guarding the well, set by the first villagers, became a hazy inheritance. The only ritual they were certain of was the Resealing that took place after every earthquake that loosened the iron seal. Until one day, they forgot.

It was the biggest earthquake the village had ever experienced. The ground had broken up beneath the villagers’ feet.  Many of the houses had collapsed and the storehouses that had been filled with the year’s harvest had spilled its wares like a flood. The villagers were so busy tending to the injured and rebuilding their houses that the little opening created by a dent in the seal went unnoticed.

This is why no one realized that for weeks after the earthquake, a young boy had been going to speak to the little voice that whispered from the well. The opening was hardly wide enough to fit even one of his fingers and it was too dark inside to see. Instead he would lower his ear next to it to listen if the voice was still there. Once he heard the voice’s distinctive lilting greeting, he would then speak into the well, and the well would speak back.

What would an ancient voice have to say to a child? Nothing but stories.

“Are you really alone?” the boy asked one day, wondering if there were more voices in the well and if they had stories too.

“Yes,” said the voice.

“But what about your parents?”

“I have never had parents.”

“That’s silly.” The boy laughed. “Then how were you born?”

“Do you want to hear about my birth?” asked the voice.

The boy said yes, but soon regretted it. The voice’s story seared images of greed and lust and wrath into the boy’s mind. Horror seeped from the marrow of the boy’s bones. The boy cowered and yelled, “Stop! I don’t want to know!”

The villagers heard the boy screaming and rushed to the well. Terrified at the sight of the open seal, they hurriedly hammered it back into the place. But they were too late. The voice had already finished its story.

The boy was rushed back home where he lay on his bed for four days and four nights. The voice’s story cycled through the boy’s mind and the voice was born over and over with each repetition. The boy didn’t want to hear it anymore, and decided he would release it in hope that it would leave. So on the evening of the fifth day, he left his room and began whispering the story through the open windows of the village houses–but the story stayed with him.

The following morning, the villagers dragged him outside and demanded he take his story back. The boy couldn’t. Furious and desperate to stop the boy’s voice in her mind, a girl threw a rock and struck the boy dead. But the story stayed in the villagers’ heads, birthing the voice with each retelling. The voice in the well lived on, and was never caged again.

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Reflections:

I didn’t stick with the structure of the original story because the image of a whispering voice in a well wouldn’t let me go. The “Well to Hell” hoax has been a source of inspiration for me before. Maybe it was the hell that is described in the story, or my own dealings with Christian allusions and text, that I realized I was straying towards similar narratives. I tried to tone it down through further edits, but some of it might have strayed through. Or maybe it hasn’t and this is an indication of how strongly invasive the Eurocentric/Christian framework is in my own mind.

Telling a story orally was a difficult thing for me to do and the first several attempts were awful and choppy. As vulnerable as you become when others read your writing, I find storytelling is even more intimate. It felt as if I were opening myself up to be judged in real time. Something about a written story allows a certain degree of separation for me (a letting go of responsibility, if you will) that storytelling doesn’t.

The response of the audience really influenced the telling of the story, and I found myself rushing through it whenever the reactions I was getting was less than desirable or become more enthusiastic and confident if my listeners were engaged. I also morphed certain parts in later tellings depending on previous feedback. Perhaps its this constant adjusting to the audience and what the audience takes away that makes a story take its shape. I predict the story would naturally change to emphasize the aspects and messages the audience is most interested in or is impacted by the most and diminish the parts that don’t. Because of this, I’d be hard-pressed to say that a storyteller has more control over a story than a writer does.

One friend actually told it back to me in his words. He turned it into a comedy with extra commentary (“THEY HAD ONE JOB! ONE JOB!”), but did leave out details while lingering on the scenes he did have opinions/questions about. Stories do end up changing so much depending on the teller–even right after it’s heard for the first time.

 

 

References:

Morton, Ella. “Beneath This Metal Cap Is the World’s Deepest Hole.” Slate. Slate Magazine, 8 May 2014. Web. 28 May 2014.

Rakot13. Сама скважина(заварена), август 2012. Digital image. Wikimedia Commons. N.p., 24 Aug. 2012. Web. 29 May 2014.

“The Well to Hell.” Snopes.com. N.p., 17 July 2007. Web. 29 May 2014.