Cistern

There’s a large rectangular cistern outside her bedroom window. It’s eight feet long, by four feet wide, and about five feet deep. She’s seen it before, she’s sure, and not at the new sixteen theatre omniplex, and not in daylight, certainly not at night. It was just as she remembered it, or thought she’d remembered it. Where was this memory coming from? It was hollow and dark, this large cistern. Somehow its size made the earth look plastic. When she reached for a handful the soil collapsed gently, in her palm. It was grainy and soft like velvet rice or the things she‘d mistakenly leave outside in the rain. She held this earth in her hand that molded and sealed like wax. This soft, firm substance had a climate all its own; it warmed, it pulsated, and it entwined itself in her fingers like living branches, or a latex glove, or another human hand.


She only saw her hand move behind her, and then felt a gentle pull as she watched the cistern move further away. Looking down on this small pile of dirt she saw her mother’s pale hand. It was dusted with that same earth that looked metallic in the sun. They walked backward in small, sturdy steps. When back on the porch she looked again to her mother’s hand, still in her own, clean, peach, nails intact, and so very hot. It seared at the touch, her mother’s hand, and she quickly removed her own- salted and peppered with that same earth. It smelled of her body, and sauerkraut, and rusted iron. It felt like wet grass and weighted pollen and a sunburn. When she went forward to return it to the hole the cistern was gone and the back door swung shut.