We plodded
wearily through the forest. The vegetation was not as dense but we still had to
use our ‘parang’ blade to clear the shrubs every now and then. The trail was still visible. The acrid smell of our sweat hung in the
air. Hours had passed but we were still
on the trail which seemed to lead us to nowhere.
Suddenly there was a light
breeze. It was rather weird. Then we
realized that we were in an open clearing. There we came across a well about
the size of a mini-Austin car right in front of us. I had a feeling that someone could have used
and maintained the well. There were two
hardwood planks placed across the well.
The water was cool and clean. I could even smell it. It was so fresh. I
stood on the planks and dipped my hands into the water. It was refreshing. The others also joined in and had some fun
playing with the water.
To our delight we saw a lot of colourful
fish swimming in the well. They looked
like guppies. They seemed to be very tame.
We used our bare hands to catch them and then keep them in the coconut
shells which were filled with water. We
then placed them some distance away from the well. We continued to catch as
many as we possibly could.
When it was time to leave the well,
we checked our fish. To our surprise, all the fish had gone. We looked all over
the place near the coconut shells. There was none at all. There was no sign
that the fish had escaped. We simply could not believe what we had experienced
that evening but the incident was enough to spend chills
down our spine. We quickly left the clearing and the well. It was a really frightening experience which
I could hardly forget until today. I am
sure there must be a spirit looking after the well; otherwise, the fish would
not have disappeared just like that literally in thin air.