Mishap

As I set out on the path I worried that there might not be any more water in the well.  I never was very careful.  I didn't even see the snake, only heard its rattle. It bit me in the calf, through my jeans. I staggered into the well and fractured my femur.  The poison didn't kill me, but after a day in darkness a bucket struck my head.  Some woman overhead shouted, “Shit!”  There was no water so she left, and no one came back.  A week passed.  I had to eat myself to survive (methodically, first my legs, then my left arm, then my torso— I've carried a jack-knife since I was a young boy.) After I took the last bite I began to float.  How careless I thought, I've forgotten my knife, my keys. It didn't matter.  I had no weight.  I kept rising; out of the well, above the fields, heading to the stars. Earth from space is so beautiful, just a tiny ornament, a memory of a fading blue pinprick.  I'm not quite sure how many years passed before I started to fall again, pulled towards the center of the galaxy; converging in perfect silence with crowding stars, ashes of planets, and blinding light, but I arrived at last standing before a familiar door. It was locked as always.