Lunch in The Piazza - Where the Mind Wanders

Here is another of the products of our little writing group.  I love writing to other people's prompts - they offer a chance to head off in a direction I would not otherwise have chosen.  Generally, I am not sure where I am going when I write the prompt on the blank page, but within a moment or two, some image, or perhaps a first line, will present itself.  That's enough to get the story started, and I can be sure if I begin writing at that point, the rest of the story will appear in good time.  Will it be any good? How can I know if I don't start scribbling?

In this case, I was puzzled for a minute - what sort of wishing well, and where?  At some time in the past I must have read something, or perhaps heard a song, that suggested a Roman setting for the well, and thus, a Roman observer of the well, and the coin-tosser was in the prompt - and so it grew from there. 

Generally we time these sessions - somewhere between 15 and 30 minutes is normal.  That was enough to get most of the story into shape, and another hour at home, polishing and fiddling with it, has brought it to completion.  Is it complete, or should I be using it as the foundation of a larger edifice?

Where do these stories come from?  Now that I look at it, having played with words and sentences for a while, and having read it through several times, I am suddenly hearing in the back of my head a famous old song about Rome and fountains and coins - could that have been it?  I wasn't consciously thinking of that song when my pen first hit the page.

The prompt was – Someone throws a coin in a wishing well, what is their story?

I normally take my lunch in a small piazza behind the Palazzo Grimaldi.  It's quieter, and better sheltered from the hot winds, than the larger, more popular spots.  There is an ancient bougainvillea that reaches out of a tiny garden to cast its shade across an ancient stone bench.

It's comfortable and private, and peaceful, away from my co-workers and clients alike.  Almost no one else ever comes here, which is why I was so surprised to see a young woman from the office adjacent to mine.  She entered the piazza from the narrow lane that once allowed those wishing to remain unseen to gain discrete access to the rear entrance to the Palazzo.

She paused and looked around.  I waited for her to greet me – Suzanna, I remembered her name at last – but the bright sunlight must have dazzled her.  My black robes and weathered face remained un-noticed in my little patch of shadow as she tentatively advanced across the hot stones towards the ancient well.  Her eyes were lowered, and her hands were clasped, as if in prayer.  A tiny gem crawled down her cheek, and I realised that she was crying.

She stopped a pace short of the ancient stonework and its time-worn carvings that might have been satyrs and fauns.  There was a legend associated with that well, I knew – but what was it?  I ransacked my aging memory in search of the story.  The water that trickled from the mouth of what might have been a wolf had been filling that well since before the Emperors usurped the Roman Republic, and filled it still, long after the Popes had taken Imperial rights into their hands.

Healing, that was it – there was some legend of healing.  Very good, I thought, my memory is not yet completely washed away by the tides of the years.  Though I felt that did not fully answer my query, and so I dipped deeper into the well of memory.  Suzanna took two short steps and stopped again at the lip of the well.  Her lips were moving, as if in speech.  She unclasped her hands, reached into the  purse that hung from her shoulder, and, with a small gesture, cast three gold coins into the well.

They were gold, most certainly, and large.  I have seen gold sparkle in the sunlight, more than once, and the splashes as they entered the water were heavy – far heavier than any of those shoddy, modern, aluminium coins would have made.  Not just healing, I remembered, but childbirth in particular – that was the story around this well.  Speak a wish, offer a gift, and the boon would be granted.  But not by any god known to modern man – this font was truly ancient.  Even the Roman historians spoke of it as old beyond measure, and claimed that its waters flowed from the hands of the nymph Egeria.

Suzanna straightened, so I lowered my head to hide my face with the brim of my hat, and sat still, as if dozing.  Her shoes pointed at me for a moment, as her skirt swirled around her ankles, and then she marched briskly out of sight.  I kept my head down until the tapping of her shoes had faded from the piazza, and thought about the young woman and her three gold coins.  She had made a sincere offering, and deserved her benefit, but from where had she obtained such wealth?

I recalled her now – plainly pretty, the sort of girl I might have flirted with, thirty or fifty years ago.  She was always quiet and reserved, dressed in clothes of quality that showed both careful maintenance and long use.  Her shoes, too, were always polished, but never replaced – she was poor, I was sure of it, and did not wear a ring of any sort on her left hand, nor any other jewellery for that matter.   

This would be mystery far worthier of my talents than the venal mundanities that trickled across my desk each day, and those three coins would be the first clue in the process of its solution.  I looked up and scanned the piazza; it was empty. I rose and walked across the cobble stones to the fountain; the water was not deep - the coins were cold and heavy.