January 10, 2010, 12:34

A couple of days ago, I was walking next to my young friend, Miro. We were crossing a large field of dry grass. I looked at the line of distant mountains on the horizon just over some low tangled trees. When I looked back to where Miro should have been. He wasn’t. I looked down and saw the top of his white sailor’s hat about 20 feet down a cement tube that was a foot wider than Miro. He was sinking into the water at the bottom.
“Try to slow yourself down,” I shouted.
He stuck out his arms and slowed himself to a stop just as the water came up to his chin.
Luckily, a group of people passed through the field a few moments later, and one of them was able to find a rope. We pulled Miro out. By that time his mother was there to take him home, and I went on my way alone. As I walked away something about the well in the field with a boy and a rope made me think of Johann Sebastian Bach and his music. Maybe something like this happened to him. In his time Germany must have been full of wells.