The Well
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“It’s been going on for as long as I can remember, but it gets worse every night,” Donna said to her therapist, Dr. Clay.
“I know you described this in detail to your last therapist, and I have read the notes from the referral, but let me hear it from you,” Dr. Clay said, setting the file down on the table beside her.
“It’s a dream. Always a dream. I see the dirty faces of a group of people. All are pointing at me, screaming. ‘Murder! Murder!’ That’s what they say. Then they all fall into a heap at my feet. I wake up sweating and so thirsty. Some nights recently I feel like I am about to die of thirst. It’s awful.”
“I can only imagine,” said Dr. Clay. “And you’ve come to see me because you think this may be a past life experience bubbling up?”
“I don’t know. It makes as much sense as anything else.”
A thin, comforting smile flickered on Dr. Clay’s face.
“So, are you ready to see if we can figure this out?
Dr. Clay’s hypnosis technique was effective. Donna was under in minutes, and Dr. Clay was guiding her through past life memories. There were a few. WWI France. The unification era in Japan. And then there was a small English town in 1349.
***
Donna was a man named Johannus, a traveling merchant from London who took his wares from town to town. Travel was ill advised due to the plague, of course, but a man had to conduct business, and Johannus had procured the mask of a plague doctor. It was as good as protection as one had.
Having been delayed due to rain and muddy conditions on the road, Johannus and his cart did not arrive in town until late in the evening.
He did not see anyone stirring, but as a precaution, he put on the mask before getting off the cart to draw water from the well for the two horses that pulled his cart.
As he pulled the bucket up, an old man approached him.
“Doctor, I pray you help me!” the man croaked.
Even in the dim moonlight, Johannus could see the tell-tale sores on the man’s face.
“Stay back! I am no doctor.”
“Help me, I beseech you,” the man said, he hands outstretched as he slowly approached Johannus.
“Not one step closer, sir.”
The man kept moving towards him. In a moment of panic, Joahnnus swung the bucket at the man, connecting with his skull. The man made an indistinct muffled gurgle and staggered, falling into the well with a splash.
Johannus dropped the bucket and looked around. No one was around. Not yet. He climbed into the cart and snapped the reigns, urging the horses on.
Some villagers had roused themselves as he left town, but none saw it fit to pursue him.
The old man’s disappearance was not noticed for a day. His body was not discovered in the well for three.
And during that time, the men, women and children drank from the well. Within two weeks, three-quarters of the town’s 200 residents were dead.
***
Donna awoke from her hypnotic state, and she was very thirsty.
The next night when she woke from the dream, she made her way to the kitchen. A glass of water did not slake her thirst. Nor did a second or third.
Night after night the thirst grew worse. One night, she simply could not stop drinking. Her death was ruled water toxemia; a fatal case of over hydration.
And, although she had filled her body past its limits with water she still died with an extreme thirst. As she had in France and Japan in her past lives, and as she would in all those yet to come.