The men turn to me.
After a long while, one of them says, ‘That makes you captain, Matthews.’
‘I know,’ I say slowly.
‘Only six of us left.’
‘Good God, it happened so quick!’
‘I don’t want to stay here, let’s get out!’
The men clamor. I go to them and touch them now, with a confidence which almost sings in me. ‘Listen,’ I say, and touch their elbows or their arms or their hands.
We all fall silent.
We are one.
No, no, no, no, no, no! Inner voices crying, deep down and gone into prisons beneath exteriors.
We are looking at each other. We are Samuel Matthews and Raymond Moses and William Spaulding and Charles Evans and Forrest Cole and John Summers, and we say nothing but look upon each other and our white faces and shaking hands.
We turn, as one, and look at the well.
‘Now,’ we say.
No, no, six voices scream, hidden and layered down and stored forever.
Our feet walk in the sand and it is as if a great hand with twelve fingers were moving across the hot sea bottom.
We bend to the well, looking down. From the cool depths six faces peer back up at us.
One by one we bend until our balance is gone, and one by one drop into the mouth and down through cool darkness into the cold waters.
The sun sets. The stars wheel upon the night sky. Far out, there is a wink of light. Another rocket coming, leaving red marks on space.
I live in a well. I live like smoke in a well. Like vapor in a stone throat. Overhead I see the cold stars of night and morning, and I see the sun.
And sometimes I sing old songs of this world when it was young. How can I tell you what I am when even I don’t know? I cannot.
I am simply waiting.
The end
