If Walls Could Talk

If Walls could Talk



Elma slipped her headphones on, music blaring in her ears with an almost painful volume. It was a pain she did not mind. But then she heard them; the whispers and taunts. She closed her eyes tightly and clenched her jaw in concentration. She needed to control it, not let it control her. Elma pressed the plus button on the side of her phone, increasing the volume of the music until her eardrums protested in irritation.

She still heard them though, loud and clear.

"Elma... Sweet, sweet Elma," they whispered with calm, hoarse voices.

She screamed in frustration and took her headphones off, throwing them across the room. She could still hear the music from where she sat, so how come it hadn't blocked the faceless voices out?

"Elma, we love you so much," they whispered sweetly.

"No, no you don't! Go away!" she snarled in anger and desperation.

They had to go away; they had to let her be.

Elma started as the door of her room was thrown open and her father walked in; more like stumbled in, she noticed, not for the first time, and probably not for the last. His eyes were glazed over with drunkenness as usual.

"You're not talking to those walls again, are you girl?" he asked in mock interest, his voice slurred to such extremes, the words almost sounded like gibberish.

"No daddy, I'm not." She muttered as she tightened her arms around herself.

"Good girl! Those talking walls are no good. Bring you nothin but trouble. You know what I'm sayin, don't you girl?" he asked patronizingly, with a twisted, drunken grin on his pale face.

She knew, oh god, did she know.

"I know daddy."

"Good, I'm going to head up to bed now. Don't you stay up too late, you hear me?" He ordered with an authority that would have been made out of steel if he hadn't been so inebriated.

"Yes, daddy, I hear you," she whispered back.

The second he slammed the door behind him, Elma let out a breath she didn't know she was holding.

"We do not like him, Elma. He is not nice to you," the walls whispered sadly.

Elma let out a tired sigh and stretched herself on her bed.

"Go away, just please go away," the poor girl muttered pleadingly.

For once, the walls quieted down and let her have her sleep.

Unfortunately, it was no peaceful sleep. Awful memories haunted her.

It was the first time those walls had ever talked to her. She was so young and naive, she had felt privileged that the usually silent walls talked to her and only her. She didn't understand what the whole world said about talking walls. They were all evil and never told the truth, they said. They were arrogant bastards who couldn't keep their mouths shut, they said. Each of them did nothing but gossip to each other like a bunch of old woman that were strewn all over the world, connected like a heck of a long family tree, they said. But she was so young and lost; she immediately took those talking walls as her best friends. She even remembered their first conversation. It was in the kitchen, when Elma was 6 and was trying to bake her mother's famous apple pie. Surprisingly to everyone around her, the apple pie had come out tasting delicious, even better than the one her mother made. But, unbeknownst to them, it was the talking walls that had helped her bake her mother's secret recipe.

The second time they talked was in school, when she had tried to use, what she thought was a gift, to her advantage; she tried to get the walls to cheat her the answers of one of her exams. The walls had strictly refused and because she hadn't studied, depending on the walls to help her out, she had failed the test. She never repeated that mistake again for the consequences were too great.

Then, the third time, and as she would then come to know was also the last for a very long while, was in her bedroom.  It was the day her parents had been fighting. They fought all the time, but this was no normal fight, 7 year old Elma had noticed. The yells were louder, the thuds were heavier, and the dreadful noises of the yelps of pain were even more defeated as they ended in deafening silence. She heard it all, though she didn't see it. She wondered which was worse. Seeing the pain, anger and desolation or only hearing them and letting her imagination soar to the worst? The talking walls had kept her company, telling her secrets, small, little secrets to distract her. After all, who didn't like their own little piece of friendly gossip? Regrettably this time, no amount of gossip helped lighten the heavy despair that she felt in the pit of her stomach; it felt like it weighed a ton of bricks. So, the only solution she thought of to lighten that destructive weight was to know. She had to know. So she asked the only thing she was certain knew everything that happened in its confines. She asked her best friends, the talking walls.

After a long while of hesitation and stuttered replies, she heard what she thought she wanted to hear. At first it didn't make any sense... how could anyone, especially him, do that? But then it sunk in, and she understood, she understood something no one her age should have to understand.

At that moment she realized that those talking walls were no gift she was privileged access to. They were a curse brought upon her by an evil witch. They must have been. For who wanted to know the secrets of the world? Who wanted the weight of the darkest of secrets thrown upon their shoulders until it brought them tumbling down in a daze of horrifying knowledge. She for sure didn't.

Elma had blocked those walls out ever since. Somehow, she found the strength in her to just let them go and live with the appalling knowledge all by herself. At the time, she thought it was the best decision she could make. But then, without those walls to keep her company, to keep her sane, she found herself falling into an unfathomable, dark hole. The deeper she got, the harder it was for her to get back out. So she let herself fall with no resistance.

Then, one day, she unknowingly had let her guard down, and the walls were back, blabbering in her ear, more loving than ever. That day was the present. And as she tried to fall asleep, all those memories haunting her, she realized that maybe they were back for a reason. Maybe they wanted to pull her out of that hole of bottomless darkness and abysmal isolation. Maybe, just maybe, they wanted to help her open her eyes to the options she had. Perhaps, she just needed to face reality and not hide behind the safety of her walls, for it was only her who could create safety for herself. To create that safety, she needed to make choices that felt right to her and only her.

Elma found herself smiling slightly as she finally understood why the walls were there for her all along. She lifted up from her position on the bed and sat with her legs crossed under her.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly before she asked softly, "Are you there?"

"Yes Elma, of course we are. We never left you." They replied kindly.

She looked down at her hands which she kept wriggling together in unease and guiltiness. It was true. They were always there for her. While she was lost in her selfish choices, she hadn't noticed that they might have needed her as well.

She sighed and finally gave in to the subterranean thoughts within her.

"Thank you." She exclaimed with great, unmistakable feelings of relief. Nothing more needed to be said between them. After all, her talking walls and she were the closest of friends.