The Town Whispers: Season 1

Chapter 23: Grim Destiny, and a Dark Well

Tom and James laughed as they fell into the grass - to have a friend, to have someone to share a wonderful afternoon of lung burning fun with is a magical thing.

He had never laughed so hard, jumped so high, or ran so fast as he had that day with James - his first real friend, his only true companion.

It's a wonderful thing to have a friend, and a privilege few fully comprehend or truly get to experience.

To have a friend, is to experience a special kind of love.

A love different to a mother, a love different than the one given by a father, and a love that would be worlds apart from the love shared with a lover.

The love of a friend is a matching of souls in a swirl of inaudible echoes - a meeting of minds alike, or unlike and in that dissimilarity, a familiarity that both friends understand. A nonverbal agreement

It is also a fickle love - that is beyond all things weak to the passing of time and the growing tsunami of responsibilities.

It is the first to be sacrificed.

It is the first to be neglected

It is the first to be forgotten.

It is not a hard earned love - it is one that comes to one another for simply having existed on the same grain in the sands of time. There is no need to nurture, nor feed - there is no expectation of higher morals - no need to protect. It is easy to clutch and hold to fast, but as easily won as it may be, it can be lost.

Friendship may last a lifetime - or simply an afternoon -

But that love of a friend leaves an indelible mark - one that teaches empathy, and understanding - patience and honesty. Tom learnt there were friends, and then there was your friend - he had no other words for what James was so he used the only one he had - the weight behind that word spelt f.r.i.e.n.d. Sounded more like b.r.o.t.h.e.r. When spoken properly.

The world had turned icky, and sick on the two boys - Tom and James. The sky which had been one blank unending sheet of white - was now a glass of water with ink spilt in it. The black and blue - angry ink sliding along the sky of the clouds, driving wet furious borders and fissures through their faces.

A wind had been building - a heavy fist with frigid tips. It waved, and winded its might contained just barely by the tips of distant mountains, blue and abstract in the distance, but the rumble of it could be heard - it was low, barely audible, just a slow and long vibration - not enough to warn of some impending disaster, but enough to make a person stare off into the distance and contemplate the state of the world.

JAMES: Wouldn't it be swell if we built a clubhouse?

TOM: A clubhouse eh? That'd be pretty neat.

JAMES: But instead of a normal clubhouse we make it a secret clubhouse.

TOM: Okay Go on... you mean like a tree house or a...

JAMES: Like one of those bunkers the German's hunkered in, underground with a peep hole.

[machine gun noise with mouth]

James jumped about, enacting a one manned rendition of some scene straight out of Passchendaele or Vimy Ridge.

Tom sat on the wet grass with his head leaning back against the well, he was out of breath, his lungs grasped for air, but he watched James who seemed to have boundless energy.

JAMES: I just had the best idea!

TOM: Yeah? And what's that smart guy?

JAMES: We build our clubhouse at the bottom of the well...

James stood there staring at Tom - mouth widening and grinning, as he stood there eagerly awaiting his praise.

TOM: There's water at the bottom of the well James....

There was a moment of awkward silence - whether because James had not thought of that, or because Tom wasn't fully grasping the idea - neither could tell.

JAMES: We..... tunnel and build it almost at the bottom, and then we cover the entrance with a false front, that opens like a trap door, and we'll cover it with stones and moss to make it blend in.

The two of them stopped for a moment - and looked each other in the eye.

For one reason or another - it seemed like a good and plausible idea to both Tom and James.

Tom stood, as James walked closer - synchronized, the two placed their hands on the wall of the old well and peered deep into the darkness.

TOM: What do you think is down there?

JAMES: I have no idea - but I'd like to find out.

TOM: Probably Just water - I'd think...

JAMES: Probably...

TOM: But What if there's something else down there?

JAMES: I suppose one of us should go down and find out

His hand rested on an old weathered crank handle - it's ended where a thickened shaved down log lay suspended above the old well - connected to it was a rope - it was neither a particularly thick rope, nor was it wasted away, thin and unreliable - it was simply a rope, that went down a very deep distance in the dark.

He looked at Tom - a smile breaking across his face, showing his teeth below as it grew, silently egging Tom LaPonte on.

TOM: I'm not climbing down that!

JAMES: But you're far lighter than me, and I'm far too lazy to climb back up. If I went down I'd most likely become a frog at the bottom instead of coming back up.

TOM: I won't be able to see, it's pitch black.

JAMES: There's lots of light from above, it only looks that dark because it's so light up here, I bet the second you get down far enough it won't seem so scary

TOM: It isn't scary.... I'm not scared James.... Seriously I'm not.

James laughed as he let Tom wrestle his own indecision. He clearly didn't want to shimmy down the rope, but he also had no wish to be known as a coward... and he was awfully curious what exactly was down the well.

Meanwhile Peggy watched from the reeds where the field dipped into marshland.

Their voices were muffled, as the wind chopped the sounds of their words and carried them far away.

She squinted watching Tom pace near the well - he'd stop, placing his hands on the wall of the well and stare down into it before backing away shaking his head.

Peggy could make out the rise and fall of his shoulders as he uncomfortably laughed off whatever it was they were speaking about.

James turned his palms up to the sky as if he were trying to convince Tom, but Peggy watched as Tom shook his head vigorously and waved away whatever it was James was saying.

Peggy watched as James and Tom stood there, staring at one another.

There was a tension in the air.

It suddenly felt claustrophobic and uncomfortable.

There were no words spoken between the two for what felt like eternity.

A frigid wind from the north picked up, rolling and tumbling through the fort - bending trees to it's will, whistling through the pines, and settling on urging the two young friends forward in whatever conflict had arisen between the two.

Peggy remained there, committed to her clandestine role as the watcher - the secret spy in the grass - but there was a nagging sensation that she should stand and interrupt whatever it was that was happening.

She should shout and scream and stomp her feet, she should take the roll of the eldest sibling, if even for a moment and wag her finger chidingly at Tom and drag him home, but she didn't.

She was committed.... Foolishly and childishly committed to her chosen roll to observe, to infiltrate, but never to stop whatever it was that was happening.

She wanted to know more - more about Tom, more about James, more about all those small happenings in the LaPonte home.

Why had Tom gone from uncaring, to brotherly, to cowardly - why was it that her mother stopped being a mother, and begun to waste away.

So against her better judgement, peggy sat knelt in the tall reeds, shivering in the cold mud, and filthy water, as she watched Tom and James.

JAMES: I'll flip a coin

TOM: No, I don't want to.

JAMES: I don't care what you want, maybe you're meant to.

TOM: What? Why? Why do you care so much?

JAMES: I don't care - you should care though - if it's your destiny, your fate, and you're denying that then I can't imagine what terrible things happen to people who deny fate.

TOM: What are you talking about?

JAMES: Heads - you go home and we forget about it. Tails - you climb down the rope into the well.

Before Tom could protest James flipped his lucky coin high into the air.

[sound of a flipping a coin]

Tom's eyes followed it as it high into the sky - it hung for a moment, carried by the wind, Tom watched as it's spin which should have been a smooth blur, instead shuddered and vibrated, before plummeting down into the palm of James's hand.

[Calling from far away]

ALFIE: What on God's green earth do you boys think you're doing? Get away from there!

James turned to the voice, and watched as Alfie off in the distance walked briskly towards them waving a thick wooden walking stick around in the air.

Tom stood next to James, beside the well, eagerly staring at the closed fist which held the coin, and the fate that James neither asked for, nor wanted.

A look of panic shot across James's face. His breathing sped up, as he looked down at where he stood, and back up to where Alfie was in the distance picking up speed - he was coming to interrupt their fun, end their game, but the game wasn't over James thought, it can't be over not yet when things were getting to be the most fun they could.

TOM: Well... was it head or tails?

Tom seemed unmoved by Alfie, if he noticed him at all.

James paced for a minute, before walking between where Tom stood by the well, and where alfie was in the distance.

He held out his closed hand.

Tom stared eagerly down, as the fingers began to peel away.

JAMES: Well would you look at that - Tails.

[Sound of a Shove, and yelling. Wet impacts, and Thuds]

Those were the rules of the coin - you must obey the fate it chose - if you didn't bad things would happen.... To James.

Often, as it turned out, what the coin chose, caused bad things to happen to everyone else around him. 

...

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