Who knows where the words will take you?

Here is another little offering from a prompt-based session of our library writer's group.  This is the prompt that was offered to us for inspiration..................

 Someone throws a coin in a wishing well, what is their story?

I had no idea where this story was going at first.  It seemed important to establish an observer and a setting to be observed, so, after a few moments wondering where I might find an interesting wishing well, fragments of old stories and movies gave me the idea of a small square somewhere in Rome. I have tidied it up a little, and added a paragraph to round it out - it may yet act as the core of a longer story, or a scene in some larger work.  I keep all these little pieces - I often don't know from what dark corner of my mind they have emerged, and can never be certain that they may not come in handy one day.

We work to a time limit - from ten to twenty minutes is typical - so the pen needs to hit the paper fairly quickly.  During my first session at a writing group, the time limit seemed like a choke-collar around my neck, but it soon turned into a useful spur - I learned to start scribbling and see what words flowed onto the page.  

It is one of the most useful lessons I have thus far been given.  When the ink is not flowing, the story is not moving.  The following story was my response to this prompt -

The Well.

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

It's comfortable, 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 an adjacent office appear in the little square.  She had entered the piazza from the narrow lane that once allowed covert access 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.  I remained unseen in my little patch of shadow as she slowly advanced across the hot paving towards the ancient well.  Her eyes were lowered, and 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, with 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 fountain 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.

Healing, that was it – there was some legend of healing.  Very good, I thought, my memory is not yet completely washed away by the ebbing tide of years.  Though I felt that did not fully answer my query, and I dug deeper into my 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 her purse, and, with a small gesture, cast three gold coins into the well.

They were gold, most certainly.  I have seen gold sparkle in the sunlight, more than once during my long years, and the splashes as they entered the water were heavy – far heavier than any splash our 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 well 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.