The light well

The light well of my building gives voices back, like they all do. I noticed on a Tuesday, hanging out the washing: I dropped a peg, said 'damn', and heard it twice. The first one wasn't mine.

I ran some homespun experiments. I counted to three: the well said 'three' an instant before I did. I tried words impossible to guess — platypus, Villaconejos — and they arrived all the same, half a second ahead, in my exact voice, like a prompter who knows my part better than I do.

The neighbour on the fourth floor, forty years in the building, saw me leaning over the railing and asked no questions. She only said: 'Don't encourage it, it gets ideas', and shut her window without waiting for an answer.

Last night, taking the clothes in from the line, the well spoke while I said nothing: 'Call her.' My voice, my way of swallowing the L. I stood still, waiting for my turn the way you wait for a train to pass. It never came: the well never repeats itself.

I've been carrying my phone around all day. The well is silent, like someone who has already done their part.