I moved back to the country for this: aspens extending upward, the sky so wide it’s world-eating. I imagine myself in the treetops and my stomach heaves, the thought both terrifying and thrilling. All those lost years in the city I missed this. It feels good to be back on the prairie, starting over.
The water softener’s the only thing that makes me question my decision. I grew up in the country but closer to the city, we were still on city water. Not like here with the well and the water softener. The brine tank. My realtor said I’d figure it out. He said, “you’ll know when it needs salt.”
I have no idea. But everything else is manageable. A year and a half ago I couldn’t have imagined this. I was crowded in by skyscrapers, stuck at a desk, suffocating. My friendships had faded and my work was destroying me. I was coming apart.
Now I can breathe. I bought a fixer-upper with an unfinished basement. I’m meditating every morning and doing mobility exercises after breakfast. But the water softener, that gets me.
The first time I put salt in the brine tank I create a salt bridge. I look up online how to fix it but my water softener is so old there’s no manual on the internet. The DIY fixes on YouTube look complicated so I take a broomstick and push it down into the brine tank—it makes the salt bridge worse.
I give up and watch my nightly Netflix documentary. I’ve been watching shows about Everest ever since I moved to the country. I have to pause the show every few minutes to press my face into the blanket. The sheer drops and the crevasses turn my stomach. I turn off the lights and wake in the night gasping from a nightmare I’m stuck on a mountain.
I did a bacteria test when I moved in but learn, after drinking the water for a month, that I should have tested for chemicals and heavy metals. The water’s brimming with iron and manganese. I buy one carbon and two sediment filters for whole house filtration and a reverse osmosis system for drinking. For a few blissful hours I assume I’m good but then I google and discover I still need the damn water softener.
The first time the water softener regenerates it sounds like a rocket taking off in my basement. under my bedroom. It’s after midnight and I rush downstairs in bare feet and all the lights on the water softener are red and beeping. My heart races until my internet sleuthing confirms it’s simply regeneration.
I’ve watched all the new Everest shows and am now onto old documentaries. The camera angles aren’t so impressive, they don’t turn my stomach, but the footage they contain is more graphic. There’s a whole episode on dead climbers. It’s hard to watch. I can’t stop thinking about what their last moments would be like, stuck on a mountain with thinning air, seeing that drop and knowing there’s no one to help them.
My well starts to bother me. It’s always the first thing my eyes lock on after meditating. I change my meditation place but can’t stop thinking about it. The well must be hundreds of feet deep. The thought of that hole just a few feet from my bedroom eats at me. What if I fall into it? No one would hear my screams. The internet says drilled wells are only a few centimeters wide but still I’m not comforted.
I dream about mountain climbers descending the well, it’s so narrow they can’t expand their lungs or fit their oxygen tanks in it. The well gets tighter as they go down and their feet catch on things they can’t see. Breathing gets harder. The light changes and they can’t tell if it’s the changing shale or their own eyes dimming in the absence of air.
I download a dating app and set up a profile. I get a smattering of “likes” but only “Kim” seems date-worthy. We go for coffee and I ask her about salt bridges. She says she’s on city water and doesn’t know softeners. She walks me to the parking lot and when she leans in for a kiss I move away.
I finish the Everest documentaries and the Netflix algorithm decrees I should watch a show about dowsing. It’s UK-based and I can’t understand the accents. The land is too green. I watch two episodes and decide to start reading.
I’m walking around my yard when I find a willow branch that’s forked like in the Netflix show. I walk by my well holding it and my head goes buzzy. The next day when I pass it I feel a strange pull and the willow starts to point down.
I download an e-book on dowsing and fasten a tie pin on a string. I program the pendulum and work through the book’s lessons. The pendulum works even better than the willow.
I listen to dowsing podcasts and walk in circles around my property. I find a spot where my septic field is failing, then identify a perfect place for a well on the edge of my neighbor’s property. I tell my neighbor and she looks at me funny.
My pendulum goes wild in my basement where my well connects to my water system. I notice a crack in the cement near where the well comes in. I don’t remember it. When I go upstairs and check my house inspection report there’s no mention of it. I return to the basement and run my finger along the fissure—for a moment, my spine thrums electric.
We don’t meet on the app, we meet in the water filtration aisle of the hardware store. I’m trying to decipher the meaning of micron sizes of sediment filters. She’s wearing orange so I ask for help. When she turns round, I realize my mistake—it’s just an orange hoodie, she’s not an employee. My cheeks get hot but she laughs like it’s funny and walks me through the micron sizes anyway.
I watch her face instead of paying attention to the filters. She can’t be older than me, but her face is wrinkled like she’s outside every day. She doesn’t have a ring.
She stops talking and neither of us speak. I take a deep breath like I’m meditating. Stare at the ground and blurt out what I’m thinking, “Would you like a coffee?”
My face burns and I feel like a fool but to my utter shock she smiles and agrees.
We meet at the coffee chain across the parking lot from the hardware store. Her name is Jess, her garage is heated, and she has a skid-steer. I ask what she knows about water softeners.
She says she’s been using them her whole life. Most people around here use cisterns, but not her, she’s a well person to the end. She doesn’t use any filters, either.
I raise my eyebrows, not sure whether to be horrified or impressed. She smiles wide and I search her teeth for rust bacteria stains.
It’s October but minus 20 and I’m realizing snow removal is a bigger deal in the country. My neighbors take pity and let me use their snowblower. We start talking and I ask about their well. They wrinkle their noses and say they’re cistern people. They closed their well off years ago. I raise my eyebrows and they tell me no one in the subdivision uses wells anymore. They say cisterns are cleaner. That night I stay up late googling wells versus cisterns.
Jess invites me for drinks and I accept. We meet at a sports bar across the parking lot from the coffee shop and the hardware store. She’s in a hoodie and smells of soap. She eats fish and chips with too much ketchup and we share a slice of cheesecake. She walks me to my car and when she leans into my face I kiss her back and say, “Let’s do this again.”
We graduate from the parking lot. She fixes my salt bridges and shows me how to change my sediment filters. She tells me the best salt for my brine tank and tops it up for me. I watch rapt while she explains how to adjust the water softness level.
One day I notice the crack in my floor is bigger. A few days later I dream it opens up like a zipper to reveal a sky full of stars.
Winter turns to spring and I mark six months of living in the country. I’m still meditating. I have Jess and I’m dowsing—best of all, I know water softeners. I’m a whole new person from when I left the city.
The snow melts too fast and water pools in my basement. It makes my pendulum swing. The water’s gone after a day but my floor is still stained and the crack in my floor is much wider. I turn on my flashlight and kneel on the floor to examine it. When I put my pinky to the crack, I feel a cold rush of air.
That night I dream I’m climbing Everest. I bend over a crevasse and pull out a dime. The mountain becomes my basement and when I let go of the dime, there’s no sound of it hitting the ground.
I wake in a cold sweat and the metal fillings in my mouth ringing. I get out of bed and start down the stairs to check on the crack but stop before reaching the bottom. What if I go to the basement and discover the crack in the floor has no bottom? The thought makes me shudder and I rush up the stairs back to bed.
I drive to Jess’ with a tray of warm brownies for Easter. Her truck is out front but she doesn’t answer the doorbell. I figure she’s out back fooling around with her skid-steer. I try the door and it’s unlocked so I push it open and go inside.
I put the brownies in the fridge then go to the back window. There’s no sign of Jess. The rest of the house is empty and quiet. I check the garage and there’s only her gear. Take out my phone and text her—her phone buzzes on the kitchen table. Where is she?
I’m on my way back to the kitchen when I see the closed door. It goes down to the basement—the only part of her house I haven’t been to before. I don’t want to snoop, but what if she’s hurt or had a heart attack?
I start down the steps and there’s a buzz in my ears. I take out the pendulum and it starts to move. When I call out to Jess, there’s silence.
The basement is dark and smells musty. I run my fingers on the wall but can’t find a light-switch. I turn on my phone flashlight and see the usual setup—there’s the pool table, the large-screen TV, the giant speakers, and the beer fridge. In the corner, a space-heater and a video-game console. The walls are bare.
There are three closed doors at the far end—Jess must be behind one of them. The first door opens to a bathroom and a sink that needs cleaning. I try the second and am briefly impressed by the ironing board in her laundry room. The third door is the only one left.
I open the door and the damp hits me. The room is cavernous and unfinished, there’s a furnace, a hot water tank, an electrical panel, and a water softener even older than mine. I call Jess’ name and something flashes. I gasp and step backwards.
There must be six or seven hockey jerseys framed and hung on the wood framing around the water softener. Their metal frames reflect my flashlight beam—it’s what startled me. I shake my head, feeling stupid, but there’s something eerie about all this decoration in the dank corner of an unfinished room.
Maybe Jess was painting the TV room and moved them here while the paint dried. Though there’s no smell of paint, and the frames are hung with nails and perfectly symmetrical.
I’m frowning, trying to understand the logic when I see the crack in the cement. It must be five times wider than the one in my basement. I could put a finger in it, maybe a whole hand. I take a step closer and hold out my index. My fillings get cold and I pull my hand back. There’s a breeze from the floor and my hair flutters. I get the heck out of there.
I’m back in the kitchen writing her a note when I hear footsteps on the stairs. I turn around and there’s Jess, coming up from the basement, rosy-cheeked and looking vital. She brushes an aspen leaf from her hair and smiles at me.
Spring turns to summer and I run into my neighbors at the community mailbox. They nod and I nod back but we don’t speak to each other, we’re not so friendly now that we know each other’s water arrangements.
Now I’m spending my evenings watching travelogues about death staircases in South America. I can barely watch when they show the tiny stone steps jutting out the side of mountains. My stomach drops at the sight of those heights. Every night I go to bed I give thanks I’m not climbing.
Jess invites me to dinner at her sister’s acreage. She has Jess’ smile and a Lab that’s stinky but affable. Her three boys adore Jess and devour my hostess gift of brownies. At the end of the evening she turns to me and asks, “Do you use a cistern, or are you a well person too?”
I say, “Well,” and she lets out a bellowing laugh. She winks at Jess and tells her she likes me.
Later that night, I show Jess my pendulum. She kisses my cheek and says, “Don’t tell my sister, or she’ll make me marry you.”
In the fall, Jess gets the flu and I come to her house to make soup. While the soup’s simmering, I collect her dirty laundry and take it downstairs to wash. I put the clothes in the machine and start up the stairs but my head feels funny and I remember the furnace room.
I stop to listen. There’s not a sound from upstairs. Jess is still in bed, likely sleeping. I can’t resist. I tiptoe to the furnace room and open the door. Turn on my flashlight and my heart starts beating fast. The crack is wider than last time and there’s a brightness shining out from the floor. I take out my pendulum and it goes crazy.
The laundry machine beeps and I make myself close the door and return to the wash. I put Jess’ clothes in the dryer and fight the urge to go back to the furnace room. It takes forever for the clothes to dry and I almost forget the soup.
When I leave her house I hightail it to the dollar store. I fill a cart with ribbons and snow globes and go home to decorate my water softener system too.
Jess invites me to her sister’s for Thanksgiving. I make pie with real pumpkin instead of canned puree. Her sister hugs me and her kids eat the pie. She asks me about my well and I tell her I’m changing my own filters now. She says, “It’s one of the great things about living in the country,” and when I don’t answer right away, she says, “You’ll see.”
She takes me downstairs to show me her well and when we reach the basement, we don’t need a light because her water softener and brine tank are dressed in homemade knitting and garlanded with glowing LEDs. My ears start buzzing. The crack in her floor is so wide I can see the night sky and bats flying through it.
When I get home I go straight to my basement. I kneel down on the cement and the glitter in the snow globes shines like night stars. My whole body is vibrating. I reach for my pendulum but pull out a dime instead. I look down at the floor and do a double-take. A wave of dizziness hits me hard. The crevasse is so wide I could stick my leg in it.
I don’t know what possesses me to sit on the ledge and swing my foot like some climber on the summit of Everest. In the docuseries I can never understand how they linger at the top, how they seem so carefree and relaxed despite the sheer drop.
The drop. I close my eyes and see frozen climbers and finger bones disintegrating in the elements. Watch my own fingers as they loosen and the dime tumbles down into the black. I hold my breath and wait for the sound of it hitting the ground but there’s only silence.
I start to pull back my foot but it catches. Try to free it but it’s stuck. Panic rises and I swallow vomit. I start to gasp and the next moment I’m an Everest climber running out of air.
I let out a sob but there’s no one to hear me. Shake my leg and whatever’s caught my foot gets tighter. The air is too thin. I blink but the light keeps dimming and then I can’t see, there’s only the sound of my heart and the ringing metal of my fillings.
Meditation. I force myself to breathe into my center. Fear surges and I make myself inhale again. Count to seven like in the relaxation exercise. I open my eyes and turn on my phone flashlight. Try my foot and manage to free it. It comes out of the crack with an aspen leaf.
I’m back to the Everest docuseries, re-watching episodes like my life depends on it. I skip over the footage of dead bodies and press pause on key moments. I study the climbers’ faces—their fear in the thinning air as they ascend, the euphoria at the top of the world, and later, the harrowing descent. I see exhaustion, the realization that a misstep would be fatal and that they’re almost out of air, and the strangest thing—the wonder on their faces despite it all.
I buy more snow globes and my own LED garlands. One night, when the moon is shining through the fissure, I put two feet in the crevasse and wrap my legs around a tree branch.
I get braver. The next night, I balance my legs on a tree and start to descend. My foot slips and I lose my balance. The next moment I’m sliding. I open my mouth to scream but there’s no air so my fillings scream for me. I scrape my arms and the insides of my legs but my foot catches on a branch and at last my hand finds traction.
I hug the tree and meditation-breathe for what feels like eternity. I’m about to climb out but then I think about what Jess’ sister said and what it means to be a water softener person. When the metal in my mouth quiets, I reach down into the night and descend.
I open my eyes and look up at the towering aspens. There’s a pendulum wrapped around my thumb and a dime between my toes. I’m on my back, beside my well. This is where I wake up every morning now.
I’ve been a year in the country. The city feels like a lifetime ago. This life is better. Though I’ll need to find a job soon. I might start a company servicing water softeners. Me and Jess add salt to our brine tanks together now.
That’s not all we do. My neighbors and people with city water don’t have a clue. While they’re huddled around Netflix shows watching Everest documentaries, me and Jess are drinking wine and munching brownies in our basements, surrounded by framed hockey jerseys and snow globes. We’re loopy with wine by the time the moon rises from the crevasse.
We descend like Everest climbers, grinning at each other, wonder in our eyes, and the world-eating sky opens wide.
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EC Dorgan writes weird fiction and horror stories on Treaty 6 territory near Edmonton, Canada. Her short fiction appears in publications such as The Dark, Augur, and Cosmic Horror Monthly. In 2025, she received the Alberta Literary Award for Short Story. | |