I come creeping back.

Oct 09, 2009 22:41

How did I get here? I sat and stared at the dingy, dirty glass streaked from outstretched fingers seeking light. How many years of silence have colored this pane gray? The room seemed to overflow with half-read books and yellowed notepads partially filled with sophomoric double entendres. Who filled these pages? My grimy digit caught my eye. I brought my fingers to my lips, tasting the grit of defeated passion that covered every surface. Turning away from the filthy window, I walked to the center of the room. I saw the dog-eared books, carefully marked for future reading, spines brittle from lack of use. Seized by an inexplicable urge to run my hands over the surface, to feel the dry rippled pages against my skin, I reached forward. My fingers tensed. They fought to maintain control. I could feel the pressure steadily build, but I wasn’t sure how to loose it. I have remained silent for years, and my mind felt uncommonly slow.
Why did I come here? What errand brought me creeping back to this place? I dropped my useless hand to my side and closed my eyes. I felt myself sinking, being drawn into that deep cavity in my chest. There’s something there. Here. I know it.
You like to be the one who hurts. The walls knew my story, they were sagging beneath its weight. “I do not seek to wound, rather I have a quiet mind,” I whispered, invoking words millennia old, breaking the colorless silence. Was that true? I meant to accomplish something, I think.
Without sense of urgency or purpose, I walked to the opposite side of the room, away from the one window, further into the darkness. What traitorous tale would these walls recount if given a chance? What dark deeds would they illuminate? I pressed my head close to the cold plaster, straining to hear with more than ears. I heard the faint rhythmic beating of some monstrous heart. How could something so cold sound so alive? “What truth do you have to give?” I queried. No response came from the crumbling mute plaster, nothing answered save for the measured pulsing of some unnamed beast.
He knows how to keep things hidden; he’s been doing it for decades. He doesn’t even know how many he’s stowed away over the years, fermenting in some dark place, reeking and staining the plaster black. The walls are rotting out. Soon they’ll be too weak to support anything, to hold up against the wind. I wanted to punch my hands through the plaster, to extract every dark secret, and rebuild the slumping structure. But I can recognize a useless endeavor. I know futility.

Instead, I’ll wait it out. He’ll die long before I will, and then maybe I can rebuild.
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