The Wellside

It was about the sixth hour when walked up to the well her water pot delicately balanced on her head.

She was sweating profusely but that was the least of her concerns. She needed water and this was the best time for her to come fetch it. She loathed coming to the well in the morning because then she’d get to meet the rest of the women and they didn’t like her much. Rumor had it that that she was a husband snatcher. They say that there is a bit of truth in every rumor, where her story was concerned, there was a lot of truth, not just a bit of it. So no, women didn’t like her. She knew that and so she did well to avoid them.

She got to the water point and set her pot down.

She was about to start drawing water when she saw this man. In his own admission, he was tired because he had taken a long journey. You’d be tired too, what with the heat in that desert country. So it was only sensible that he find a place to chill out, take a breather and maybe, get a cold drink. He was hungry as well so his travel party had decided to go get food from the city.

He remained at the well. Not many people came to the well at noon. Most people came to fetch their water early in the morning before the weather turned in a furnace of sorts. He sat there waiting.

She could tell that he wasn’t from around.

He was one of those that they weren’t even allowed to talk to. They had had beef with these guys for decades now. It was one of those things that you never really got to understand. It was both a religious and political feud. She decided not to mind him. She’d been taught and had learnt well. She proceeded to do her business. Why bother with a man at a well in the middle of the day anyway?

She’d fetched a little water when the man spoke to her. “Give me a drink!” He said. Now she was completely dumfounded! How could he even ask her for a drink without even saying hi! What kind of man was this? The audacity! She wanted to pretend that she hadn’t heard him but her instincts told her to engage him and so she did.

“What? You guys aren’t even supposed to talk to us. Where do you get off asking me to give you water!” She said as her eyes rolled all the way round her eyeballs.

The guy wasn’t even taken a back by her answer. He sat calmly hands clasped. He looked at her and said, “I don’t blame you. If you knew me, then you’d have asked me for a drink yourself.”

“What do you mean by if I knew you? I do know you, you are a one of those guys and we have nothing to do with you people,” She retorted as she went about her business. “And by the way, that water you are talking about, how would you draw it? You have nothing to fetch water with!” She added.

She’d heard about these people and how they had a certain religious arrogance. Now she’d met one and there was no way she was going to let him get off that easy. “Are you are greater than our forefather who gave us this well and also drank from it?” She asked.

He didn’t bother with that question though or her seemingly agitated tone. He simply, to her utter disbelief, kept on speaking. “The water I give is like no other,” He said. “If you drink it, you’ll never know thirst. In fact, you’ll have a fountain of water in you.”

You should have seen her face! She looked like she’d been hit and run over by a 24-wheeler truck. A man stood right in front of her purporting to have a kind of water that ends a person’s thirst completely? Unbelievable! She thought to herself that this man had to be crazy. The things that he was talking about were totally incoherent. She decided that she’d had enough of him and so; she called his bluff.

“If you have this kind of water that takes my thirst away once and for all then give it to me. I am actually tired of coming here to draw water.” She told him in a kind of a sarcastic jest.

She didn’t know that that one comment would be the key to the Pandora’s box. She hadn’t just opened it up; she’d blown it apart into tiny pieces. She had played all her cards forgetting that he still held his close to his chest. Now it was his turn. He had cornered her and she didn’t even have a clue.

The man took a pause as though to compose himself, sat up and calmly said, “Well, I’ll give you my water if you go bring your husband here!”

“Husband? Excuse me! Who told you that I have a husband? I don’t have a husband!” She told him even more agitated.

“Of course you have no husband. You have had five husbands and truth is, even the one you have now isn’t yours. So yeah, you are right, you have no husband.” The man told her.

She was shook to the core. How could he know all these things about her? Who was this man? Who had sent him? Who had told him about her and all her issues? You see she had struggled with this men issue for a long time. She wasn’t proud of herself and she knew people detested her for it but she’d lost control over it and she’d found no one to help her. But now, this man was telling her about her deep stuff.

Her heart melted.

“How do you know all these things about me? I know the prophets exist, are you one of them? Where do you know all my business from?” She asked the man.

“I am the Messiah!” He said.

It suddenly hit her that all this time, almost callously and carelessly; she’d been talking to the Christ. They’d been told of his coming from childhood but now, she unbeknownst to her had been talking to him for hours. She was both humbled and petrified.

That statement alone changed her life completely. She no longer needed the water pot nor the water she’d come to fetch. You see, she thought that she had come to the well to fetch water but no, she had come to meet Christ. She’d thought that what she had was a natural thirst but she had just found that hers was a deeper thirst, one that could only be satiated by God. She’d hid away from people for years, even coming to fetch water in the middle of the day to avoid them because she was ashamed yet Christ wasn’t ashamed to meet her when no one else could. She had just met the Christ and met her salvation, right there, by the well.

She’d met many a man but now, finally, she’d met the one man who had changed her life. She was free, finally and she couldn’t wait to tell the whole world about it.

Her quest for water had led her to the man by the well.