Wall Blocks

The wall is white and dusty. Block. Block. Block. It has shade, light, texture. It stands, unchanged, for all its life. When people talk to it, like a gentlemen, it listens. Things hang upon it, and it does not mind, nor complain. Just as we see how it holds us up, we tear it down.

The gentlemen in their rare, and now rather antique cars, travel down to the market for their groceries. They chaffier their wives or their dogs in their old trucks; the woman rides in the back, the dog in the front passenger seat. Or if she gets lucky, the wife may get to ride underneath the old hound dog, spit slinging into her hair. But, it is not her fault. Don’t blame her. She has a mental problem. The husband loves her for what she is. She loves the husband like a brother. Day after day he drives her to the store so she can hang her head out the window, gaping at the same trees and fields, cows and birds.

Of course, you know, the husband is no bad man either. He lets his wife/sister have what she wants, and he only asks for a little. Companionship. The old man was a loner, a traveler with no home. But, he fell in love with her. Though, may it be odd or not, he does love her. He even lets her ride in the back of the pickup truck sometimes. She loves it. She loves him, but only for a short time. When they get to the grocery, she feels like they all look at her. All those walls are staring at her. Are they judging her?

The husband stares at the walls as they round each aisle. He is protecting her, so she feels a little better. Then he looks back at her, asking if they need any more toilet paper. Toilet paper. It is white. Pure. But, not as white and immense as those walls. She quivers. He gets an extra pack just in case.

They get home. He packs the groceries in. She goes directly to her room. He wonders at himself, at her, and at the spoiled milk in the refrigerator. He forgot the milk. Later that night he sits at the table, drinking his coffee, staring at the wall. White and immense, it holds the husband together. He leans on it. If he only knew that in the next room, his love was building her strength up. It would be tonight. She would attack.

At midnight, when all was quiet, and her husband slept calmly, she slipped out to look at that wall. It was asleep, so it seemed. So, she gathered her homemade dynamite. Shotgun shells add up with gunpowder, plus the television can teach anyone anything. She placed those sticks at its feet. Now was the time. She didn’t hear her husband come to the door. She lit the sticks and looked in awe as the boom echoed through the fields. And the cows and birds stirred in their sleep, but did not awake.

The husband, still trapped under the rubble of the giant wall, clung desperately to life. How could the wall kill him? He loved the wall for what it was. He saw it as an immense ocean of faith, the blocks that held him up. Just as we see how the wall holds us up, we tear it down.