Jack and Jill

The true story of how Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill, did indeed, come tumbling after.

J

 

Jack and Jill went up the hill,

To fetch a pail of water;

Jack fell down and broke his crown,

And Jill came tumbling after.

 

 

 

How Jack Met Jill

 

 

 

            “Come on dude, just ask Jill to go with you to the well,” Chad begged throwing large hands over the back of the pickup truck.

            “I don’t know man.  Jillian might get the wrong idea.  She’s not that kind of girl,” Jackson pulled his hands through his hair for the hundredth time.

            “Come on, Jack,” he hit the side of his friend’s truck.  He glared at him.

         Chad rolled his beady eyes at his long time friend and slapped an arm around his shoulders, “I know.  I know.  She is the kind you marry and all that jazz.  You told me ten times already.  Let’s just ask her and see what she says.”

         Chad stayed still as if the motionless gesture would confirm his pitiful words. 

            “Okay.  Only after I tell her I will have her home by nine because her dad would kill me if I harm her in any way.”

            “Man, you got it bad.  You’ll be writing poetry and singing at her window at midnight at this rate.” 

            “Shut up.”

            “Just saying.”

         Both boys jumped in the truck leaving the senior parking lot.  Jillian and her best friend Stacy left five minutes ago.  Both boys tried to appear “cool” while they passed, but both their mouths hung open as they walked across the parking lot to Stacy’s car. 

         And the girls knew.

         Girls always knew.

         She said yes.  Jackson was beside himself.  Now it came with conditions.  With Jill, it always came with conditions and he would obey every one of them to have her.  Nine o’clock on the dot and not a minute more.  Her father always said it.  We stay with a group and are never completely alone.  Her father always told her this before he arrived.  And...and wear two layers of clothing.  This...she didn’t tell Jack.  But her father must have.  And she followed her father’s advice.

 

 

The Pail As Seen from Jackson

 

 

 

         For that...I was thankful.  Cuz’ I can testify that the male teenage species needs those barriers to stay sane.  Whatever man ever thought we could live without females was a lunatic.  They drive us insane, make us do ludicrous things to gain their attention, and force us to show our affections at the cruelest of times.  But...when the right one came along...you would do anything to have her.  Anything.     

         Six o’clock.  Three hours of not alone time with Jillian.   The night was cool, but not too cold that Jillian needed a jacket.  She wore long sleeves that covered her snowy white angelic arms.  Her neckline was low for her, but modest under the two layered vest she wore over the tee.  Jeans.  She was warm.  Maybe she would fake being cold so I could wrap my arms around her at least.

         The stars were heavily spread across the night sky.  No clouds in sight. 

         It was perfect.

            “Do you want to sit on the back of the truck or inside?” I asked then realized I might be insinuating something.  Dup!

            “Uh, out is better,” she giggled.  “We won’t see the fireworks from in here very well.”

         We both opened our doors and climbed down.  After her door slammed shut I realized I should have raced around to open and close it for her.  It was too late now.

         I did however remember the blanket.  I spread it out across the tailgate and watched her perch her cute self on the right while I climbed on the left too far away from me.

         I pretended to adjust the blanket causing me to be closer to her.  When she didn’t protest I rested both hands on either side of my knees that hung off the sides making my fingers brush her thigh.  I saw her shiver.  That did not help with the hormonal teen beast inside.

         If I could just touch her...not in a rude way but just be near her, I could breathe.  I’d never hurt her.  I couldn’t.  And I’d never felt this way before.  She...consumed me in every way.  Her green eyes.  Her bright smile.  Her tingly laugh.  Her hair. 

         I loved her long blond hair and the way it waved around when she moved it off her neck like it was tickling her.  I wanted to move it for her on many occasions but as yet to do so.

         I checked my watch.  Fourteen after six.  I was a mess.

            “Did you see where Chad and Stacy went?” she asked me not looking my way.  Her legs were swinging back and forth beneath her making the truck sway a little.

            “Nope.  Around.  They will surface when the sparks fly.”  Heck!  I didn’t mean it that way.

         She giggled.  “Yeah.  That’s Stacy.”

         I agreed completely.  “That’s Chad.”  Yeah, I could handle it being me.  But not anything would I do to risk losing this girl right now.  I wouldn’t even give her a chaste kiss if it meant she would see me again.

         Silence.

            “Two weeks till graduation.  Do you have any word from NTS?” she said looking my way this time.  I took the opportunity and smiled at her.  Her eyes glittered under the dim lights in the courtyard.  The well was twenty yards away.  I was determined to get her over there and increase my good luck.  It was good luck or something for keeping her this long or at least I convinced myself of the fact.  Every guy said it around here...it’s just they wanted luck for other things.  I just wanted to be able to see her again. 

         “I got it.  I will commute and live here.  Scholarship to play football and everything.”

            “Hey!  It’s something,” she patted my forearm and pressed with one finger.  Oh heck!

            “Yeah.  I’m glad and all.”  I couldn’t concentrate with her touching me.  It’s one thing to touch her, but wow!

            “You should be.  I have to pay for college mister.  Same though.  I’ve decided to either go to NTS or SMU.  Not sure yet.”

         My heart jumped.  She was staying here.  I wanted to scream loud and hug her.  What the holy heck is wrong with me?

            “That’s good. You staying I mean,” I said like a lame ‘ejjit.”  “Is your major still nursing?”

            “I don’t know.  Maybe, maybe not.  I’ll decide later.”

         Sounded good to me.  I wanted to tell everyone who kept telling me what to do with my life to shut the crap up.  I would decide later. 

         Just then, the first sparkler started up.  A fuse was aflame, and the sky lit up even more than with the stars alone.

         Seven fifteen.  The fireworks ended.  The finale was great to watch.  Not the lights I mean, but her.  The way her face lit up each time and her body jumped at the booming sound.  Brave, I took her small hand in mine when it was obvious it was the end.  I didn’t want the night to end and not get to feel her skin. 

         It was soft just like I imagined.  We’d been on three dates now.  The movies and two nights at the Chili’s.  I was broke. 

         This was date number four...and hopefully counting. 

         Her hand curled around me like a soft feather.  I felt the senior ring she wore twist a little as I moved my fingers to lace into her.  She let me. 

         My body hummed.  I was calm.  This girl calmed me and made me crash like ocean waves all at the same time. 

         After too long a silence when the fireworks ended, I shifted to turn to her.  The clean-up crew was at work in front of us. 

            “Do you want to go walk awhile?”  Oh no!  “Uh, just walk.  To the well and back.  We can still see the car from where we go.”   Crap!  I sounded like a bumbling fool.

         She giggled her tingly laugh for me.  “I trust you Jackson.”

            She shouldn’t.

         She hopped off the truck and took my hand in hers.  My body jolted upward.  I hoped she didn’t feel that.   If she knew what my body was thinking without my mind, she would run screaming all the way home.

            “You want to play football your whole life?”

         Was that a trick question girls play?  Of course not. Do they want us to say yes so we look tougher...or less intelligent?

            “I’d like to play for as long as I can.  I enjoy it.  But it’s not my first choice.”  There.  I said both.  Safer.  But she would laugh at me when she heard what I wanted to major in.

            “And that would be?” she took the last step to land us in front of the well.

         Dup!  I liked her first for her smart mouth.  She told me off in the cafeteria earlier this year when I was allowed to run smack into her with my dimwitted brain while laughing at my buddy.  The tray of cardboard pizza covered the front of her and instinct told me to just clean it up.  When I grabbed her shirt, she went ballistic. 

         If I was a girl, I would too.  Not that I want to be a girl or anything. 

            “Writing.  Journalism.”

         Here it comes.

            “Wow!  That’s great.  I would love to see something you wrote.”

         She would?  My back straightened in a smug way. 

         We sat beside each other on the edge of the well.  Not smart, but where else?  The hard ground?  I wouldn’t let her sit her pretty derriere on the dirty ground.   I even scrubbed the well clear before she sat.  Something was seriously wrong with me. 

         She turned her head and looked down into the well.

            “Don’t do that?” my hand shot out grasping her arm.  I needed good luck, not bad.  Of course, she giggled and stared at my hand.  I snatched it away fast.  “Be careful Jillian.”

         Her laugh stopped.  She narrowed her eyes and stared at my own.  I wanted to read her mind right then. 

         Maybe she heard me ask.

            “Why do you call me Jillian when everyone else calls me Jill?”

         I know I blushed like a dang girl.  I don’t want to be her everyone else.

            “I just like it I guess.” No, I knew.

            “Alright then Jackson it is.”

         Everyone called me Jack.   I secretly smiled.

         We talked for...thirty minutes.

         Fifteen till eight o’clock. 

            “You want to ride a while?” What else could we do that was prudish and calming that didn’t fit what my mind was really thinking?  I liked her.  Slowly, my mind was filling with other things.  I wanted to know her.  Oh, the beast was still there and wouldn’t subside anytime soon, but I wanted to see the real her.  Make her see the real me.

         She pushed off with her feet and as I reached to grab her hand...she lost her footing and over...and down she went. Into the well.  I just murdered the girl I wanted to marry one day.

 

 

The After As Seen from Jill

 

 

 

            “You’re going to have happily ever after one day.  You’re going to fall in love with a hot babe that is completely head over heels in love with you so much he hurts to be away from you.  He will growl at any man that nears you like the true animal that a man is.  You will get married, have a boy and a girl that you will name with the same first initial.  You will live in the mid-eastern states I think and drink red wine for special occasions.  You will grow old sitting on a porch watching your grand-kids play football in the front yard.”  My best friend finally let a breath out, but not before she finished with, “At least that’s the story I’d write for you.”

         I giggled, laughed loud, and tossed my head back and forth at the same time.  It was a dream not unlike my own, but in the not.gonna.happen part of my life.   My prince would never come and we’d never live happily ever after.  At least not in this worm hole of a town.

            “Jillian Jane,” my best friend Stacy put her hands on her hips in wait for me to say yes to going out with Jackson.  She thinks he might be this prince.  Everyone knows you don’t let hormonal teen boys be your prince.  They are mindless and only think about one thing until their grown up more. 

          I hated my name.  Couldn’t I have been born a Caterina or Cynthia?  So when my body flipped over the side of that well, that was my first thought.  People would remember my horrid name...and nothing else.

         I screamed the whole way down.  Darkness.  Wetness.  Cold.

         And then...it was him.  Jackson had followed me.  Oh heck.  I’ve killed him.  The boy I might marry one day when he wasn’t mindless and hormonal anymore.  He was so sweet and nervous all the time.  I just wanted to have my first kiss.  That’s all.  Now I would never see him again.  I would die without being kissed.  My heart ached as I plunged to my death.

         I heard his scream.

         And then I heard nothing. 

         Thump!

         Thump!

         We hit the bottom.  Alive.

         Jackson lay beside me groaning and I rolled over to him.  He held his hands out to me after getting his bearings.  He must of hit his head because he grabbed and held onto it instead of still reaching for me.  I moved the hair out of his eyes and waited with my hand on his cheek.

            “Are you...okay?” I asked him too close to his face.  I needed to see if he was okay in his eyes.  One’s eyes tell a lot.

         He blinked once.  Twice.  “I’m okay,” he looked at me full own in the darkness.  I could see him somehow even in the black as midnight staleness of the bottom of this well. 

            “Are you okay?” he started to pat places he shouldn’t as he inched his hands all over me.

            “Stop.  I’m fine.”

            “Sorry.  I just wouldn’t live with myself if you were hurt.”  Somehow, I knew he was blushing.

            “It’s okay.  I knew you were just panicking.  Besides, I think we bypassed the death part.  I don’t know how we are alive.”  It is impossible.

            “Right on with that.”

         I smiled even in the blinding dark.

         Survival 101 kicked in.  “Do you think there’s a ladder?  Maybe we should feel the walls and see if there is something to climb?”

            His intake of breath sounded as doubtful as my words.

            “Already on it.  Don’t think we’re gonna get that luck I was promised.”

            “Huh?” I hinted.

            “Oh, nothing.  It’s just I didn’t foresee this being the way I ended our night together.” 

         All thoughts of “the end” left me.  “How did you see the night ending?” I asked shyly.

            “Jillian.  Don’t get me wrong here.  I like you.  It’s just...I’ve wanted to...” he stopped.  He was back from checking the curve of the walls and standing real close to me now.  I should be thinking about getting out of here.

            “Want to what?” I said real slow.

            “Jillian, I wanted to kiss you goodnight at your door, watch your father turn on the light and make me leave, and ask you to see me again tomorrow and the next.”

         Wow!  He was laying it all out there and not talking about anything but kissing.  Guess falling down a well will make you spout things you wouldn’t ordinarily.  Well, here goes.

            “I’ve wanted you to kiss me since that day in the cafeteria when you dumped your pizza all over me and you tried to help but it only made it worse.  When your fingers touched me, well...I just...anyway.”  I was a moron.  He’d think I was stalkerish now.

         He was too still.  I royally screwed up.

         Suddenly, his breath was against my cheek.

            “I know I waited.  I didn’t want to scare you or make you think I was like those other guys.  I wanted to do this right.  I like you Jillian.”

         I loved when he said my full name.  Ode to the gods who named me.  Or my mom at least.

            “Jackson.  Seeing as how we are stuck and well, I don’t know what might happen.  Do you think...”  I couldn’t ask him to kiss me.  Desperate didn’t even cover all the bases of what I’d just said.

         But I didn’t have to think about it long. 

         He kissed me. 

         His lips were warm and sweet.  His hands stayed on my waist.  I put my hands on his.  We stayed like that for a little less than I wanted.  I could have kissed Jackson for a long, long, LONG time.

         His boot scrapped the wall and dirt fell.  Both our hands were caked in the dirt from scrapping before the...kiss.

            “I’m glad I told Stacy I would come tonight,” I said as if we might get out of this mess. What if we didn’t?

         He brushed my hair aside my neck to comfort me.  It tickled.  “We will get out of this.” 

            “Helllllooooo.”

         What?  “Someone is calling for us.”  I scooted to the middle like it might help.  “HERE!”  I screamed and jumped like it might help. 

            “DOWN HERE!” Jackson screamed with me.

         I heard the faint sound of the echoed word, “Rope.”  Then I felt a thud. 

         The thin rope bounced over the top of me and hit my head and popped against the wall a second time.  Jackson just pushed me up the rope without words. 

         After a very long climb I emerged atop.  Jackson was still down there.  I admit it was extremely hard to leave him.  He calmed me.

            “Don’t know if this lassie is what we expected.  She is a might more comely than I thought we might pull out of there well,” a deep voice boomed out a laugh as I climbed over the last part.  He was ten years my elder, full beard, and dressed in a...kilt.  What the heck?

            “Get my friend,” I begged.

            “Already on it lassie.  You have a name sweet?”

            “Um, Jill.”

            “Well, Jill.  You are both lucky.  Not many get found down a well like that.  Lucky you are.  Both of ya.”

         After three or four minutes Jackson came over the top.  His eyes bugged out the same as mine when he saw our rescuers.  They were all men in skirts. 

         He moved too fast as a quarterback of a football team could.  He grabbed me around the waist and pulled me against him.  That was closer than he or any boy has ever been to me other than my father.  I flushed crimson.

            “We just want to go home,” he squeezed me even closer, protective caveman skills at work.

            “And home you will as soon as you tell me where that is,” the man said looking us up and down as strangely as we did him.

            “Jackson,” I couldn’t breathe, “something’s not right.”

            “I know.”

            “Jackson and Jill.  What are you two doing up on this hill?”

         I took a second to look around.  The cars were gone.  The trees were everywhere.  The road was...nowhere. 

         But the well was here.

            “Jackson, something’s not right?”

         I saw the wheels turning in his mind.  “Where are we buddy?”  Jackson’s eyes watched our rescuer.

            “Seth.  My name is Seth.  And you are right where I am.  Don’t you know where you are?” his face puzzled both of us as he stroked the end of his beard. 

         I looked at the kilt.  Gulp!

         He saw me looking and I blushed.  I wasn’t thinking anything...bad. 

         When neither of us answered he said, “You’re in Torra.”

         Torra?  “Why aren’t we in Royce City anymore Jackson?”  If I kept saying his name, maybe it would magically wake.me.up.

            “Where is Torra?” he asked Seth, the kilt man.

            “Right where it has always been son.  In America.”

            “Are we in Texas?”

         Seth bellowed, “Texas?  That dissolved hundreds of years ago when the war ended.  There are no democratic relations around here.  Since everyone took over the areas they wanted, it’s free reign.”  His bright bushy eyebrows raised.  “How do you two not know this?”

            “Um, we just forgot I guess.”  I didn’t want this big man mad at me.  Us.

         Jackson glanced at me, then back to Seth.  “You mind if we have a minute?”

            “Didn’t you have lots of those at the bottom of the well?” he wiggled his eyes at us.

         Oh he just didn’t.  Girl mode cat claws emerged.  “You big, hairy�"

         Jackson covered my mouth.  “She will be fine.  I just need a moment.”  He pulled me by the arm far enough to whisper in private.

            “While I enjoy your smart mouth Jillian, making the giant in a skirt mad might really be the end of us.  We need to figure this out?”

            “Figure this out?  We are stuck in some freaking time warp.”

            “That’s it.  Somehow we landed somewhere else.  In the future it seems.”

         I was about to officially go insane.  “I think that’s a given Sherlock.  How do we get back?”

 

 

Jack Get Back

 

 

 

         Man, she was a tiger.

            “Come on!” I pulled her arm and she yanked it out.  Something snapped in me.  I apologized with my eyes and gently put my hand in hers.  She softened and followed.  Thankfully.

         Mr. Miniskirt appeared complacent but impatient only with us.  “What do you know about this well?” I asked.

         The man looked like I’d stunned him with my alien laser gun. 

            “Well, it has always been here.”

            “Anything else,” I detected something more.

            “It is dried up.”

         Duh, man!  “And?”  I stood taller though intimidation was in his court all the way.  I had a girl to protect though and I didn’t plan on losing her.

            “Fine son.  You are not the first to come up the well. That’s why I knew to listen.  Someone comes up once and while.  Sometimes they stay, but mostly they go back in it and disappear again.”

         His accent disintegrated.  He was talking like us now.  Whoa!

         Jillian asked him, “Did you come up the well?”

         He stilled.  Yep! “Yes.”

            “But you didn’t go back.”  Jillian made it sound like a question but it wasn’t.  However, Seth answered it like it was.

            “I tried.  My wife and kids are back there.  I fell in five years ago.  I didn’t have anyone above to help me so when another came up, it was too late for me.  That’s how it works.  One comes up, another can’t go out.  It has to be the same transfer of body and space or something.”

            “So what’s with the kilts?” Jillian eyed the others standing far from us now.  They didn’t see us as a threat I guessed. 

            “Bored.  Time is a cruel joke.  I fell down that well trying to impress my girls.  Both my daughters were eight and ten when I left.”  He slumped his shoulders.

         I felt sorry for him.  Just minutes ago I thought he might kill us and now I felt like he needed a hug.  Well, mostly.

            “So, we can get back you think?”

            “I have to assume that’s where they disappear too.  I tried.  They hauled my butt back up to wild blue yonder here and not home.”  He sighed heavily.

         Maybe we have a chance. 

            “Do we just fall?”

            “Not sure.  But I usually lower the rope and put them back down.”

         This was unreal.  “Will you help us?”

         He nodded. 

         I took Jillian’s hand and walked back the steps to stand before the brink of death or a time machine, whatever this was.  Whatever happened next, I wanted to say something to her.

            “Can I talk to her for a second?”

            “You may not have much time.  Sometimes they come back to back.”

         What was this thing?  How did it come to be?

            “Jillian,” I took her face into my palms.  “I want you to know that I will hold on to you.  Keep you safe.”

         She was shaking.  “I know.  I trust you.”

         She shouldn’t.  I have no idea what would happen next.

         I kissed her, not long enough.  At least I kissed the girl I wanted to marry before I died. 

            “I will go first,” I told her.

         Seth lowered me down and then her.  When she was with me, I heard Seth yell one more goodbye.  We waited.

         Nothing happened.  After hours of holding each other in the dark, shivering, and breathing stale air a scream like death sounded above.  Neither of us was hurt.  Why were they screaming?

         It came in clearer.  “Jilllllllllll!”

         It was her name.  In no time I bellowed back, “HERE!”  It echoed. 

         I couldn’t decipher minutes anymore so I don’t know how long it was when the rope hit my head.  She climbed up first and then me.

         Above.

         Stacy, Chad, the cops, Jillian’s parents (oh brother), my parents, and fifty million other people hovered over us. 

         Jillian’s mom hugged her so tight breaking the connection I had with her.  She moved another foot away from me, but her eyes were on me the whole time.

            “You scared the living daylights out of us,” her mom breathed more than spoke.

            “It was Jackson.  He saved me.  He went in after me and saved me mom,” her angel eyes said this to me.

         Her mom turned to me...and hugged me.  “Thank you,” she breathed in my ear.

         I just wanted to be back with my angel.  She was too far.

         Jillian was carried away.  I was too.  I texted her the second I sat in my father’s car staring out the window like a madman.  My brother would get my truck, my father just told me.  I barely heard.

         CAN I CALL U

         Luck was with me.  She had her phone.

         PLZ  X0

         My heart zapped into place again.  

         Whatever happened to Jillian and I tonight, it would stay with the two of us for the rest of our lives.  And both of us said with our eyes what we were both thinking just before we parted.  We would never tell.

 

 

After the Fall

 

         The two ended up marrying during college where they both went together while living at home with the parents.  They often spoke of the well and about Seth and wondered if he’d ever see his family again.  Each time they brought up the story to the other, it sent shivers down both their backs and drew them closer to each other.  Sometimes luck was on your side.