And after that, when he’d started believing he needed to find it. It had started as a curiosity born of boredom, loneliness. Rachel had packed her things and moved out and he had spent every evening for two weeks drinking beer after beer, staring at the television. One of those evenings, as William sat sprawled on the couch, absently flipping channels and earnestly appreciating his sixth beer of the night, the man in the red windbreaker on the screen had caught his eye. The man’s face had been nearly as red as his jacket and shiny with rain and perspiration as he waved first one arm and then the other at the thick vegetation surrounding him, while summarizing the mystery of what he called ‘the water of life’. William had caught the tail end of the show. Just enough to make him wonder. Two hours of drunk internet searches and a sober trip to the library a couple of days later was the beginning. After a while, the historical accounts he found started sounding like clues. Finally, he felt he just had to see if the places…the clues…he was finding on paper were really out there. With nothing but the prospect of empty rooms and empty beer cans at home, two weeks’ vacation on the calendar and a plane ticket in hand he had started the search. That was five years ago. Every year he had come back and each of those years he had found something new that he believed brought him closer. Caught up in this revelry and watching the hillside more than his footing, he was taken by surprise when suddenly the ground gave way beneath him. He pitched sideways grabbing hold of a protruding rock in front of him. On one knee now with his other leg almost completely within the hole, he reached out to push for leverage against the ground and his hand plunged through the earth, the rest of his body followed, and he landed on his back with a hard thump about six feet below the forest floor he had just been walking on. He rolled to his side with a groan, and as he pushed himself up onto his knees he looked up and saw that he had landed in a deep, sheer crevasse with its main opening nearly fifty feet above where he now knelt. He gave a nervous laugh as he realized that lucky for him he had fallen through the hole at the base of the hill rather than the one at the top. He was fine; however, his pack lay half submerged in a small stream a few feet away. All his gear would be wet. But his curse was cut short when his mind finally caught up with what his eyes had already been assessing. He had fallen through the ground... and found it. His pack was lying right in the middle of it. There was no doubt. All of his senses were suddenly more vivid. He watched the water as it flowed by in front of him and it seemed to be moving slower than water should move. He felt as if he sat just watching it forever. The sunlight became dancing jewels on its surface and he realized then he could smell it. It filled the air around him and smelled sweet and pure and his mouth suddenly felt dry as if he hadn’t drunk in days. He was so thirsty. Should he drink it? What would happen? How much should he drink? Suddenly none of that mattered; he just knew he must taste it. He shuffled over on hands and knees to its edge and dipped his cupped hands beneath its surface. A lightness surged through him and he felt like he would float away if it weren’t for the waters holding his hands, as if they were the only thing tethering him to the earth. Not wanting to take his hands out of the water, he lowered his mouth to the small submerged pool within his palms and drank. He filled his mouth and had barely swallowed before he felt compelled to fill his mouth again and again. It tasted like eternity and love and he drank more than should have been possible. He felt like he could never be full and that he would never get enough, but finally, just as quickly as his thirst had started, it ended. His hands still beneath the water, he raised his head and opened his eyes and wasn’t surprised at all to see a pair of bare feet beside him in the sandy, damp soil. A strange thing to remember, but he knew those feet. He remembered when he was little he had held his own small feet beside them and compared their size and shape with his. He hadn’t seen them or the woman they belonged to since he was eight years old. He raised his eyes further then and looked up into his mom’s face. She was smiling with unshed tears brimming in her eyes and she was whole and strong and not too thin and her hair was full and beautiful and dark like his. With no hesitation and a muffled cry, William suddenly rose to his knees and wrapped his dripping arms around her legs and hugged her fiercely. As she knelt next to him and took him into her arms he began to cry. He cried all of the tears that he didn’t know he needed to as a boy and all the tears he didn’t know how to as a man. He cried for losing her and missing her. And when all those tears were done, he sobbed with joy at the safety and comfort he found in her arms as they knelt there by the water. He was a child again, lying in his mother’s arms. He felt safe and loved again in a way only a child can feel. William didn’t know how long he wept, with the feel of his mother’s arms firmly holding him and rocking him. He smiled to himself when, still feeling her arms around him, he finally opened his eyes and found her gone. William wiped his eyes, took a deep breath along with a last glance at the stream flowing slowly by, and pushed himself up to his feet. He gathered his things for the walk out, the final riddle solved. The un-mended heart, with a moment of vulnerability, will find the waters of youth and be healed forever.
Red Writing Hood Prompt -- Happy Endings
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