Flying Island

The Cistern by Nicole Brooks I couldn’t keep myself from every so often getting on my knees, lugging aside the steel cover and staring down into the cistern. It was lined with bricks and smelled of musty old water. One day I looked too long and fell in. When I had been down there a few days a man walking by heard me wailing. I asked him to send my baby down. “How about some water?” he said. “That works, too,” I said. “Where is the baby?” he said. “Somewhere in the house,” I said. He sent down a bucket of water and another bucket with the baby. I remembered then the daydream I used to have about placing the baby at the bottom of the cistern. The thought had always scared me but I recognized it for what it was, a reckoning of all the things I could or could not do to the tiny baby. “ I should bring you and her up,” the man said. “ You and what army,” I said. “I will get help,” he said. Back in the house the baby ate while I ate and then we dozed. “...