Honestly, I have never been there. Deep in my mind the place existed also for me, not only for the others who were supposedly so fortunate to get there, as it turned out later, quite often. On the basis of the most detailed--but somehow incredibly dim--hearsay I had got an abstract picture of the queer occurrences as well as the exact location of the place, which not only one time did lead me into temptation to follow the others on a mysterious trip. What prevented me from this was . . . humph, I don't really know. Someone who, on this miserable mudball, doesn't know the reasons of things happening around him might be silly . . . Yes! That's it . . . Back then, for my luck, I was just a young, silly boy as I still am.

That summer the fact that the population was decreasing from day to day remained hidden only for the blind. But do not think that the people died; they only disappeared from our sight. It seemed as if they had ceased to exist in both material and spiritual form, or travelled for a vacation to some distant land by an unreliable airline company. In fact, they were quite close. They didn't go anywhere, not even to the cemeteries. They were at home, locked like in a silent, chilly crypt. Within a lean month, more and more people developed a passion for vanishing from public life--so much so that few people were seen on the dirty streets, in the churches, or around the taverns any more. They were absent from the shops, the cinemas, and the morturaries as well. At that time I didn't think even for a moment that the death-like silence, which was absolutley not a characteristic of our settlement, had anything to do with that ancient place. With the ancient place, for which no one was old and wise enough to be able to tell any exact information about . . .

When I realized that my all-time favorite misanthropic visions were becoming useless with the lack of flesh and blood, semi-thinking creatures perfectly suitable for this exciting spare-time activity, I really felt a need at least to see some of them, including my only friend who sometimes deservedeven to be talked with. After not being called on for so long, I began worrying seriously for my feeble race, especially for the only person with whom I might have shared some mutual intrest. So, at last I decided to do something.

The something, however, proved to be the only thing I could do, and this was exactly the one that I would have done not for love or money before. I was sure that I had to meet a person who had myraid times more brain in his head than I, or if it's just the same amount, could know a better to use it. Even if he had two legs and two arms less . . .

Shivering with anxiety and uncertainty at how our first meeting would turn out, I rang the bell. No answer arrived, so I pushed open the door. Then I almost fell down at the appalling spectacle. The man, whom I had never seen but heard so much about, was sitting in front of me in a battered chair in a shady, middle-sized room and staring at me with his desparate eyes without a noticeable sign of surprise. It appeared as if he had been waiting for me, although I wasn't in the condition to think over this trifling thing at that time. I shuddered with horror for some moments, then I thoroughly glanced my future companion over. I couldn't believe all the gossip I had heard about this mysterious man, but now I had to admit that he surpassed all my expectations. He didn't have any limbs--indeed, he was a perfect incarnation of a disabled person. A trunk wrapped up in clothes and a head with dreadful expressions on its face--that was really him, but the pair of gleaming eyes made me think that the frightening clump of flesh hid an immeasurably immense intellect.

"Supposedly, you feel better now to have fulfilled your curiousity," said he in a pleasantly peaceful tone. "But what people get is not always what they expect or search for."

Not knowing what to answer, I just stood before him. Then he went on talking.

"People are greedy and selfish. They no longer possess any interest in their fellows. What made you come here is, however, not to gain some advance to your own prosperity by my advice, as I suspect."

"Well, it is really so. . . " I muttered after comrehending the real meaning of what he said. I remembered this man to be known as one who always gave advice to those who were really in need of it. I realized that his brain was the only thing people often called on him for.

"You may know the answer to what is going on here these days. . . " I risked a question. "People are getting strange and I have a bad feeling about this."

"Your feelings serve you well, little boy. There is really something that went wrong. But the answer is for you to find; it is out there."

"At that ancient place? I asked in an indiscreet manner that wanted any politeness. "Have you been there by chance?" As soon as I uttered this sentence, I immediately realized my rudeness. How this man without limbs could ever get there? But my excitement to meet somebody that has been there was stronger than my soberness. In fact, for eons I had been waiting for a man to tell me a tale about that legendary place located near this land somewhere in the hills.

"The answer is for you to find--it is there. But be careful--you, too, are nothing else but human," he answered evasively.

Feeling a bit relieved, I left his residence and a strong determination was starting to rule my inner sense that I had to visit the ancient place as soon as possible. As I was walking home in the ethereal silence of the deathlike streets of my once crowded hometown, I became lost in my thoughts so much that I could hardly realize any movement in front of me. No wonder that the shadow of a human creature appearing suddenly caused such a great shock that I jumped quickly behind an abandoned fish stall. The man seemed to be insane; he couldn't even pretended the contrary. His incomplete dressing, the way he was moving and muttering half-loud words as well as the gleaming, mad light in his eyes left no doubt about the unusual, yet undiscovered activities happening continously under his hat. What made him more grotesque were his deformed body parts that I realized only when he made some steps towards my unsafe hiding place. His head was twisted approximately 75% around so that he could see a bit more of the things going on behind him than in front of him. His face, with those cankers and the seemingly purulent flesh, created an impression in me of a leper. Strangely, he could move quite fast, although his movements were a bit broken due to some other corporal deficiency.

"Never! You should. . . never!" I heard him murmuring. "Not go there. . . you, soul be eviscerated!" This latter remark was addressed straight to me after he had discovered my hiding place. Since he was getting closer and closer to me, I found it extremely urgent to show him my back, fearing that his illness might be infectious. But, to my great surprise, he didn't prove to be the only living dead I met on the way home. The other one, however, happened to have partially avoided the white coated demons of chaos to trepan his cranium that far, so after a while an almost pleasant chat started to evolve between us.

"Heh. . ." started he.

"Hoh. . ." said I, hoping that this answer would entirely satisfy him. But to me he didn't seem to be mad at all, even at first sight, and he also could have noticed this mutual characteristic of ours in me. He also looked like a cripple, but the clear, intelligent tone in which he continued his speech easily made me forget this presently usual specatcle of today's fellow-men of my hometown.

"Oh, you must be one of us. We are so few left at this place. The ones who could resist. . . "

"Resist. . . what?" I became interested.

"You couldn't drink enough of it even to know what you should know?!" He was astonished and made a step back.

"No, I didn't drink at all. But what should I have drunk of?"

"Ahh. . . So you. . . never?!"

"Never, as I said. But. . ."

"But the well of knowledge has been opened for everyone. . ."

I was again starting to lose my confidence and consider this poor person to belong to the insane lot, when he forced some apparently important sentences out of his mouth.

"You should avoid the well if you were able to do it so far. Too much is lost, people cannot show any resistance anymore. The cheap way of gaining trutths over lies and ignorance is alluring for everyone. But just take a look at me! My life decays before my eyes, the deterioration of my brain just grows. I need some drops of that fluid to know. . . to know how to stop. . . how to stop this addiction."

"Where can I find that well?"

"NO!!! Do not search for it, unless you want to be like us!"

"I have to find a friend of mine. . ."

"And you think he is there?!"

"You said everyone was there, so why couldn't he. . . ?" And it seemed that for the first time in my life I managed to exercise an influence on someone. Wheteher it was for my infallible innocence or the pity of my companion towards a worthless, miserable creature like me, I really don't know. The line of discussion was in my lead and the chat from that time on went as I wanted. "And I am extremely curious, anyway," I added.

"Curiousity. . ." he made a gesture of resignation. "We were all curious. Now we have to pay the piper for this."

"So that is why the people are so icy to each other and averse. . ."

"Yes. The knowledge they got from only a few drops of the water of that well is never enough. Newer and newer dimensions are still opening and each one is deeper. . . as well as needs something from the body. You know, the mind is more to endure than the body. . . And it is always hungry!"

"The plenty of the disabled!" shouted I, enlightened.

"Yes, they have all been there."

"I have to find that place!"

"You like their condition so much?!" he asked with a derisive smile and measured all over my perfect external framework with his eyes. I left him standing and musing and just realized myself going towards those misty hills in search of the ancient place where the well is deductively located. In this I was not sure at all, but some irresistable, supernatural force didn't allow me to cast doubt on anything any more.

The breath of the daylight was getting used up as quickly as a falling body desperately approaches the ground. I knew I was already quite far from the town, but had no idea how long I should go on yet. And then, through the blur of the nightfall, I saw him. He was lying on the grimy ground with his face down. His body was in a sarcastically malformed position, but even this fact didn't prevent me from recognizing my old, lost friend in it.

"You cannot help him," I heard a voice behind me say. "He's irretrievable."

Turning round, I caught sight of the owner of the former voices; not too far behind him a miserable crowd of zombie-like people were swarming around a queer construction. In slow motion I straightened up and stared, mesmerized at the sombre, pitch-black building. As for its shape, I couldn't find it similar to any structure made by humans and known by me; its plain, round base was decorated with the most primitive and disgusting ornaments I had ever seen. Still, for me it was quite clear even in the first moments tha this horrible creation served as a well. Getting closer, the silent idleness of the lobotomised public transformed into a restless murmuring. I carefully measured the company in which I discovered even some familar faces as well as some semi-intelligent ones. Soon I reached the rim of the well and glanced into its depth. Down there the dark water of knowledge seethed, steaming and smelling. Something still gleaming managed to get through the foam from its infernal abyss to glitter promisingly on the surface.

"What's that shining in the deep?" I asked hopelessly of the man next to me, who seemed to be startled from his dazed melancholy by my inquiry. However, he answered in a surprisingly meek and sober way.

"That is the price of knowledge."

"What sort of price? I have never known that it is something to pay for. . ."

"Yes, it is. Nobody asks the value of this water, although every one of us is fully aware what it is worth. And we always give something to the well. . . Don't you want to join us? Take a sip of this fluid, and you'll be. . ."

"How much does it cost?"

"Only one gold piece. . ."

I gazed into the dismal water for some moments before turning my back to this distressed company. My thoughts had already been going around in some distant land, where other ideas ruled. In the meantime, I got back to the place where my friend had been lying. The body was still there--it seemed as if it was even more deformed than before. I bent down with the intention to help him when something in his hand caught my eyes. I forced his fingers open and saw a tiny thing in his palm. It weas a gold coin. After short minutes of hesitation, thinking over all the past thousands of years in the history of mankind and the possible future of the galaxy, I seized the coin and set out.

by Erik Zöldi