That Bottomless Void

By Nana Dadzie Ghansah

There was an abandoned well in the Ghanaian village I grew up in. The story was that many years ago, a little child fell into and drowned in the well. His body was never recovered.

Fearing the same fate might befall me, my grandparents warned me never to go near it.

The warnings didn’t stop a seven-year-old me from wandering over on a few occasions to that abandoned well and peeking over the short wall that surrounded it. The few times I did it without getting caught, I looked down the depth of that well and was struck…