Walls

Walls. Walls everywhere.

Leonard made a face, a sour grimace that might have conveyed anything from good-natured humor to pain. The weathered wrinkles of his face deepened and his thin lips formed a hard, white line.

Walls. What good were they, anyway?

The one that stood before Leonard’s wheelchair was plain: a flat, featureless expanse of sheet rock, freshly painted a creamy off-white reminiscent of the vulgar tapioca pudding they served at lunchtime. There was no border at its uppermost reaches to differentiate it from the equally lackluster ceiling. There was no baseboard to separate it from the polished linoleum floor.

A wall like any other.

Leonard wheezed, his breath coming in clipped starts and gasps. Behind the smudged thickness of his glasses, his pale blue eyes watered and bulged. When the coughing fit trailed off, he was weak and his ribs were sore. For a while, he let his head drop; for a while, he dozed.

Time passed.

He woke slowly, rising through layers of sleepy consciousness. For long moments, Leonard was confused, his thoughts plodding down strange alleyways and corridors in his mind. Blue sky, he thought, Blue sky and clouds. Wisps of cottony fluff stretching to the horizon... Hard on the heels of the confusion came the screaming banshee of panic --- Where are your blue skies now? --- but it was short-lived as Leonard began to recognize where he was.

What time was it? He looked up.

Hard to tell; there was no clock on the wall. Not a clock, not a picture, not an electrical outlet. Nothing. Just that unending, uninspiring sameness.

He nodded to himself, a motion as frenetic as the palsied raising of a hand, and the grimace faltered and broke. A smile emerged, knowing and cynical.

Walls. They had their purpose, no doubt. The stalwart protectors of secrets, they were, defenders of chastity and virtue. You could argue that a wall was a structure borne of the noble desire to foster privacy and intimacy and to provide shelter for the unprotected and weak.

True, of course. But Leonard knew something else, too.

There are two sides to every wall, just as there are two sides to the very nature of the structure itself. If a wall is built to protect one person, it is therefore intended to keep another out. Or, where erected to keep someone sheltered and safe, it might also be useful to hide things not comfortably seen.

At it’s worst, a wall might be built to keep a person from going, to keep a person from doing. To keep a person…

From behind him, Leonard heard the nurse.

“Lunchtime, Len."

"Yeah? Whaddaya got?" The old man turned slightly.

"Chicken nuggets and green beans. Pudding for dessert."

Leonard grunted. Goddamned pudding.

"Then it’s time for your pill.”

* * *

“Hey, Poppa. I see they painted your wall.”

Leonard opened his eyes, squinting away the stark fluorescent light above his bed. He smiled, genuine and warm, and regarded his grandson where he sat, there beside the bed.

“Why, David,” Leonard said, his voice a gravelly whisper, “It’s good to see you.”

“How they treatin’ you, Pop?”

“Alright, I guess.”

There passed a few moments of silence; not uncomfortable, as David held the older man’s gnarled hand in both of his. But the quiet was pregnant with unasked questions and mute accusations. Finally, the younger man spoke:

“Hey. The gals at the nurse’s station said you broke your picture, Pops. The one with the sky and clouds. They said you threw that plant Sissy bought you…”

Where are your blue skies now?

Leonard looked away, his eyes misting.

“That picture ain’t like what’s real, you know,” he said quietly, “It ain’t like being there. Picture’s pretty, sure. Blue skies, nice fields and mountains. But it’s an illusion. Got as much depth as the cardboard it’s printed on.” The old man drew a long, shuddering breath. “The air here is stale, David. I can’t smell the flowers and the sunshine in this room, no matter the picture they put up.  I just wish I could get the hell out of here.”

“I know.”

They locked eyes; another pregnant moment. Then Leonard smiled.

“You’re a good boy, Davey…”

* * *

Walls aren’t like doors.

Doors open and possibilities bloom like spring flowers. Behind every door is a new adventure, or a new friend, or a pleasant memory. Step through a door and your life is changed.

Walls, on the other hand, are static. Walls are dead-ends; no matter what’s on the other side, when you come up against a wall, that’s the end of your journey. Up against the wall you have two options: you either stop cold and accept that end, or you backtrack. Maybe --- just maybe --- if you retrace your steps, you can find a different path, or find a door back there somewhere that you missed.

Leonard didn’t have the energy to backtrack. He didn’t want to.

The walls of his room were impassable; they might as well have been hewn from solid rock. The smell of fresh paint made him nauseous, that drab vanilla hue a soft shade of death inextricably linked with the pudding he despised. Overhead, the fluorescent fixtures droned on and flickered fitfully.

Where are your blue skies now?

Leonard let his head drop to his chest. His breathing grew shallower, and his hands relaxed their grip on the arms of his wheelchair. Behind his glasses, his watery eyes flickered closed…

…and the wall tumbled.