There’s a small park near my childhood home, to even call it a park is an overstatement. Back then, it consisted of a dozen tree’s, a pond with more algae than water and the ruins of a well from when the town was first founded. I would cut through the park frequently in my teenage years because it was an easy shortcut into school. I never paid much attention to the park back then, if anything I was disgusted by it. There were patches of scorched earth from the frequent bonfires. The older teenagers hung around the park at night, usually to drink cans of beer they stole from their parents. The one aspect of the park that I especially couldn’t stand was the litter. Every brand of sweet wrappers, beer bottles and cigarette packets lay on the park ground, accumulating. There once was a time where I saw the remnants of a torn up couch beside the old well. The park started to get a bad reputation for this sort of thing. My disgust for the park lingered with me for a while, I started to avoid the park more often because of the older kids sticking around more often. That was the case until I met Sylvie.
If I remember correctly, I was running late for school that morning. I’d have to cut through that park again if I wanted to make it on time. I rushed through the main pathway of the park as a dozen potential excuses ran through my mind in order to avoid detention. By the halfway point, I saw something strange that caught my attention, so strange that it caused me to slow down my pace in order to see what was going on. There were two older boys dumping a plastic bag full of recyclable litter into the old well.
“That’s a good start I guess”, one of them muttered before walking away.
The confusion I got from watching this unfold caused me to briefly forget about the hurry I was in to get to school. I got detention that day. When I left school in the evening it was still partially bright out thanks to it being early Autumn. Cutting through the park again, I saw the well. My curiosity from that morning enveloped my annoyance about getting detention. After five minutes of cautiously advancing towards the well in hopes that no one would see me, I realised that it was my first time seeing the well up close. It was less of a well and more of a lengthy hole in the ground. Poorly laid rocks surrounded it with the odd crushed cans and smashed glass sitting atop the rocks, it didn’t seem very special, until I peered down.
The well was completely dried up and at least a quarter of the depth it should have been as the bottom was made up entirely of piles of junk. What especially caught me off guard was the girl snoring at the bottom of the well. She had frizzy ginger hair, her clothes looked worse for wear, her old jacket was tattered with the ends fraying and dangling over the linens that made up her trousers, from all the rubbish being rained down on her, who knows how long she was down there. She must need help, I thought to myself. I screamed down the well several times but it had no effect on her, she continued snoring. Something about me trying to help her while she snored like a baby was frustrating. In a last ditch effort I grabbed one of the empty cans atop the stones surrounding the well and dropped it on her head; this seemed to do the trick.
“Ow, Jesus, What the fu-” she paused.
There was something about her shocked expression that caught me off guard, I could tell it wasn’t just because I threw a can at her head.
“Oh my god, you can see me can’t you?” she said with one hand rubbing the part of her forehead that was hit by the can.
“What?” I replied, startled by the words that just came out of her mouth.
“You can see me!” she bounced up onto her feet with a wide-mouthed smile. “It’s been decades since I’ve spoken to anyone before!”
My first thought was that she might have gone insane from being stuck down the well for so long but I was curious to know what she’d say next.
“What do you mean decades?”, I paused, “you look the same age as me”.
“Well I have news for you” She said with a cocky smirk, “I look so young because I am in fact the guardian spirit of this forest”.
She stuck her arms out and gestured to her surroundings as if to expect a mountain of appraisal but all I could do was stare at her in utter confusion.
“What are you talking about? How did you even get down there, also why’s there so much litter down there with you?”
I had so many questions, but I knew I had to go one step at a time
“I dunno?” she shrugged her shoulders like it was the least of her problems, “They made this well as tribute to me ages ago but I fell in by accident, as for the trash? Those teenagers have been dumping loads of it down here for whatever reason”.
She seemed to be in no hurry to get out of the well, so I realised I needed to try a different method to convince her to climb out.
“But”, I paused, “Aren’t you worried about dying in the well?”
She peered up the well and locked eyes with mine before falling onto her back into a relaxed position.
“Nope, even if I die, so long as the forest is in good care then I’ll come back”.
I looked out at the decrepit park, she must have no idea what it looks like now after being down there so long. Before I could tell her about the state of her “forest”, she bounced up on her feet again.
“Hey, hey, since you’re the only person who can see me, I think we should be friends!” She reached out for a handshake despite being so far from me, “My name's Sylvie okay!”
I hesitated for a moment, unsure of what predicament I'd just landed myself in before finally reaching out my hand. We did an awkward air handshake before I replied.
“Okay Sylvie, deal. Want me to help you out of this well?”
She sat down cross legged and back against the wall of the well.
“Nope, I have my own plan for getting out”
“Okay well, goodluck with that Sylvie”.
When I turned away from the well, she immediately yelled.
“Wait!”
“Yeah?” I exclaimed.
“I do have one favour”.
“Go ahead then, tell me” I replied, curious for what she has to say.
“Keep me company until I get out, also bring me some biscuits. I’m dying to know what oreos taste like”, she said, waving an empty packet in her hand.
Visiting Sylvie became a routine for me during those cold Autumn days, either once in the morning and once in the afternoon after school ended. The trek to Sylvie’s well mostly involved me hiding behind a tree until the teenagers finished dumping their trash down to Sylvie. When the time came, I hobbled over to the well where she usually greeted me with the same cocky smile she had when we first met.
“What are these?” she asked.
“Wagon wheels, try them”.
She inspected the biscuit in her hands and took a bite.
“Oh”.
“Is something the matter?"
“No, it’s just”, she paused, “what is that in the middle?”.
I couldn’t make out what she was looking at from atop the well, but I could see her peering into the wagon wheel.
“That’s probably the marshmallow”.
“What is it?”.
“You’re joking?”
I noticed that Sylvie ate very slowly, choosing to savour each bite like it was her last. I once asked her about it to which she answered while still chewing,
“Do you enjoy watching me eat? Weirdo,” the disgusted look quickly turned to a smile, tinted from the biscuits staining her teeth.
“No-no, its just that-”
“Kidding, Even before I fell into the well I didn’t have many opportunities to eat so I try to savour any opportunities that I can”.
She continued.
“And savour them I will, you were saying these are peanut butter flavoured?”
“Yeah, Oreos have loads of different flavours”.
Her mouth whispered the words “peanut butter” under her breath and held one up in the air.
“The outside world must be so amazing now”, she remarked.
“Yeah, it has its perks I guess”.
She shoved the biscuit in her mouth and looked up at me.
“Hey, I have one more favour to ask”.
“You want another packet?”
“No”, she paused, “can you tell me what my forest is like?”
I looked around at the barren land of rubbish and withered trees that made up her forest. “Well, what would you like to know?”
“How’s the lake?”
“The lake?” I paused, “well, it’s clear-crystal clear, I mean”.
I continued,
“I even checked myself out by looking at my reflection on the way up here”.
Sylvie began to giggle,
“And what about the grove next to the lake?”
Looking over, I couldn’t see a single tree near the lake aside from a bench or two.
“Yeah, the grove, it’s still there. Plenty of trees”.
“I used to love sitting by the grove, staring out into the lake. Watching the grass grow”.
Her face looked to be in a dream-like state, reminiscing on old times. It broke me on the inside. I knew I shouldn’t have lied to her, but I didn’t want her to give up on her plan to get out of the well.
Questions about the outside world persisted in our hangouts, and I spoke about all the advancements in technology, although the concept of the television confused her greatly.
“Wait, so people can watch tv at home, but they can also pay money to watch movies on a really big television screen as well”
“Yeah, it’s called a cinema, I can take you to one when you get out of this well”.
My heart began to race, eager for her reply. My mind silently prayed, hoping that she’d say yes, but when I looked at her, she seemed off. Her arms were crossed and her eyes sank to the floor of the well. In this moment, she seemed small, like the confines of the well we’re fit for a giant.
“You can’t leave can you?”
“I told you, I have a plan”.
“I’m not talking about the well”, I paused, “I mean the forest”.
She frowned and lay her arms flat on the ground.
“I’m the guardian of this forest, I can’t leave this place”, she let out a long sigh before looking up to me again, “The forest can exist without me, but I can’t exist without the forest”.
Part of me knew it couldn’t have been that easy, that I knew something like this would be the case. I wanted to comfort her, I really did. But before I could say anything she laid down on her side, her back facing me.
“I think I’m going to call it a night, you should head back home for now. I’ll see you some other time” she mumbled before going silent.
Things began to drift apart between myself and Sylvie ever since that day, I visited when I could in early October, but there seemed to be an awkward tension between us. She no longer asked me about life outside of the forest and she wouldn’t eat some of the snacks I got her. She seemed closer to me, literally. I didn’t realise it since I saw her so often but she seemed closer to the surface than ever before, I even pointed it out to her.
“Am I imagining it, or did the well get smaller?” I gave her a perplexed look, what I didn’t expect was the answer she gave me.
“Yup, those teenagers have tossed so much litter down the well that I've been slowly getting closer to the top” she answered, flicking stones at the wall of the well, seemingly uninterested by our conversation.
Her reply gave me an abrupt realisation, followed by a sudden rush of pure frustration.
“Wait, hang on a minute” My eyes darted down to hers, “Was this your plan for getting out, waiting for the trash to build up?”.
“yep”.
Looking back, I think I was just pissed off about how stupid her plan was.
“You’re joking right? I could have gotten you some rope, or a million other ways to help you out” I said as my voice gradually raised.
“No, I just wanted to-”
“No, don’t give me some excuse, It’s like you don’t want to leave the well, and see what your “forest” actually looks like” I said
“You know that's not true”
“Well Sylvie, your forest is a kip, It’s not even a forest. It’s about ten pathetic trees and a poor excuse for a pond. There’s more beer cans on the ground than blades of grass”.
Sylvie swiftly looked up at me after what I said, the look on her face told me she knew that all along, but why did she not leave the well? It didn’t matter to me at the time, I quickly got up and stormed off before she could explain herself.
To this day, I can’t bear to think of that day. For three weeks I didn’t visit Sylvie and yet, she was all I thought about. I started taking the long way into school again, I’d briefly passed the entrance of the park, it was in a worse state then when I first met Sylvie. I spent countless hours contemplating how I’d make things up for Sylvie, so I came up with a plan. I’d return to the well on Halloween night, and make my amends. I would spend hours rehearsing my apology speech and filling up my trick-or-treat bag. When the time came to pay a visit to Sylvie, I noticed that the park had an orange glow from afar, that’s when it dawned on me why those teenagers were filling Sylvie’s well up with litter. I forced my legs to move one foot after the other as I sprinted towards the tower of smoke gushing out of the well. My bag fell to the floor and biscuits poured out on the ground as I witnessed the sight before me. There was a crowd of teenagers dancing, cheering, singing and drinking around Sylvie’s well. The music and the singing was loud, so loud, and yet all I could hear was a scream coming from the well, it was Sylvie.
That night was so many decades ago Sylvie, not a day goes by where that night doesn’t cross my mind. I never left the forest Sylvie, I’m still here. You once told me that as long as the forest is cared for, you will come back. The forest might be much smaller than the one you used to protect, but I've spent years trying to make it look exactly as I described it to you all those years ago. I’ve helped the groves form so that you might one day sit under and view the crystalline lake. My days are spent preaching to others how we must protect the land we have left. I’ve done the best I could to restore the well as best as I could, it even has water now, and the only water. There’s nothing down there for you, and I won’t ever let you have a reason to go down there. And now, every morning and evening, I visit the well and I leave a packet of biscuits atop its stones, in hopes that you return.
