The Wall We All Must Climb

The walls protect us.

Every morning, that message bellowed out of every crack and corner wielding a screen throughout the city. It is the anthem of our people, the nature of our existence, and the lie I can’t accept.

It’s a fate I was never destined to dodge. My soul yearned to peek over the top and satiate my self-destructive curiosity. While many look upon the towering stone as a beacon of hope, a savior, I’ve only ever seen it as a cage.

How can a cage be good?

My parents are the only ones who’d ever heard my crazed thoughts, as they call them. It was the last time I spoke to them, five years ago before heading to the mountain schools for the trials all fifteen-year-old children must oblige. All they preached was how we must better the world, the land, and most importantly, the walls. It was a choosing ceremony of sorts; a five year walk through the soul to find your purpose. The ones held in the highest regard by the sanctum sages were given the privilege of being a wall technician. Everyone wanted to become one — everyone but me. Each job they introduced us to felt mundane and devoid of anything that would remotely excite the soul. Still, we all had to have a selected contribution to society by the time we graduated. The all-knowing sages decided my lack of diligence was the mark of laziness and bestowed the glorious title of crofter. It had become a feeling I was growing increasingly comfortable with, disappointing people.

The dead autumn grass crunched beneath hesitant steps as I walked toward my little village along the outskirts of the city. The quiet was one thing I always enjoyed. The village afforded a peace the city could not and was an escape from the screens and the constant low rumble of voices. The mountain schools matched the city’s hum, and coupled with the sages, I was ready to leave that sanctum of faux impetus as soon as I could. However, it’s strange looking at the place that delivered so much relief for so many strenuous years. It’s layered in a different light like an illustrious film my aged eyes cannot grasp. The golden pin of graduation rested on my chest and gleamed beneath the evening shine, its brilliance unbecoming of the truth it holds. It is our people’s sign of accomplishment. I’ve finally received my societal purpose as a crofter for a small village outside of a city that will never be free. My name never known and my legacy lost among the sea of voices that refused to reach for more than their declared inscription.

Why should I follow the herd into a thoughtless oblivion? How has no one ever questioned beyond the walls? How has no one rebelled against their sigil? The torrent of questions beat around inside my mind from the time my eyes opened to the second they closed. Sometimes, I even dreamed of watching someone standing atop the wall, looking beyond the cage and challenging the known world. I can never see their face — just a silhouette with a fist held high, letting all below know they did it. They alone wielded true purpose.

I envied them, and in the same breath, I feared them.

The single main thoroughfare through town stretched before me, composed of roughly twenty buildings that lined either side. In the center of the square is a well with a large bronze bell hanging above it. Whenever a student left for the mountain schools, the village elder rang the bell as a send-off. More chimes equates to more excitement. I received all five chimes, but I think it was only because the folks around here were happy to be rid of me. The same display is performed upon the students arrival. There was only one other student who left at the same time as me: Mella, a quiet girl raised on a farm. She refused to talk to me on the way up but strangely gave conversation on the way down.

She was given the position of courier and would be in charge of the delivery of mail and parcels from the village to the city and vice versa. While it sounds mundane, it’s actually quite important due to it being the only real contact our tiny town has with the rest of the land.

Mella received four chimes from the bell as she strode into town. Her blonde hair shimmered like the pin on her puffed out chest. She was proud to be back, proud to show those around her what she was destined to do, proud to be a part of this society. Unlike me. I was destined to farm, which was a task I’d never attempted nor ever wanted to. A condemnation wrapped as a blessing, I was only given in response to a misjudged attitude. My life story was written for me under the pretense of control from small people grasping at what power they could. The horrible truth is that if I went against this verdict I would be ostracized or exiled by my own people. A single chime from the great bell gave me all the confirmation I needed that the entire town was already waiting for an excuse to enact that very punishment upon me the first chance they could. My steps were slow, hesitant to what reception awaited at the well. The only one who showed anything past a frown or disappointed sigh was Mella, who smiled as I followed her down to the central square.

I’d barely spoken to her until the journey back, we’d both primarily kept to ourselves in the school with nothing past a glance or a nod in the halls. What changed? Who knows. The one thing I do know is that I’d just become an official member of society and I stood on thin ice that just started to crack.

– – –

By the close of the second season, I’d genuinely felt like a crofter for the first time. It felt nice, all things considered. Success and accomplishment’s reward always felt good, especially after real manual labor, which I’d never truly understood until preparing my field for the first time. The other crofters that focused on farming did little in the realm of help during my first season. Still, my effort was undeniable. During the second season they began to approach me and offer advice for better harvests or more efficient techniques. One crofter in particular that was impressed was Mella’s father, Devlin. Many times, he offered to put in a word for me to Mella, who had apparently spoken about me on more than one occasion. Life had begun to make sense, and I started to feel the very foreign sensation of comfort for the very first time. The better my days became staring at the dirt meant the fewer days I spent staring up at that damn wall , pondering what was past it.

Sweat poured down my face when I’d finally finished seeding the last row of corn. My eyes faced upward but not at the wall, at the Sun whose heat I’d cursed more than once this afternoon.

“So, that’s it then? You’re a crofter now, Cad?” a distantly familiar voice said behind me.

I turn to find Mella leaned up against an oak tree. Her blonde hair a little darker than I remembered but still beautiful atop her heart shaped face. Her brown leather courierbag slung across her shoulder full of correspondence like she was ready to head out on another delievry.

I gestured toward the perfectly straight rows of hopeful corn, “not bad huh? I think I’m beginning to like this.” I used the bottom of my shirt to wipe my face and stepped towards her. “How’s the mail running treating you?”

Mella giggled, “It’s actually pretty great. I’ve been to nearly every town within the walls, even went out to the western walls about six months ago. You wouldn’t believe how different things are there.”

Somewhere deep inside me beneath layers of tilled soil is a pulse. She’d traveled and seen our known world, every corner, every culture. An uncontrolled stream of envy began flowing into my soul. “That’s incredible Mella, I’m happy you’ve been able to see what no one else in this town has. You deserve it.” I smiled, but the final sentence was anything but the truth. It was a reminder that I’d once shared the dream she lived, one no one could ever know about, one I had forgotten. “Got a favorite place?”

Her face twisted while conjuring an answer. “I’d probably have to say the great city in the north, Illanda. The walls there are covered in a dense layer of ice, even in pure sunlight it stays draped over the wall. It’s the most magical thing, when the light hits it just right it could pass as a wall of diamond jewels. I’ve never seen anything sparkle like that, Cad.” My head hung instinctively but I played it off as giving my face a reprieve from the sunlight. She saw right through it. “Want to come with me next time?”

A heavy thud slammed into my chest hearing the offer. The spirit that once burned brightly inside now viciously clawed away the layers of faux love for topsoil and healthy vegetables. A breath filled my lungs to their bottom, but something inside fought down the excitement. “You know a crofter can’t just up and leave, the fields are a year round commitment. I’ve just began to make strides with the other –”

Mella frowned and wiped the hair from her face. “I didn’t want to believe it, but I guess it does happen.”

I took a step back, shocked at her cutting interruption. “What are you talking about?”

She looked out toward the fields and then back to me. “I remember your drawings, the ones you made in school. It was always the lone figure standing atop the wall. I watched you stare up, like you’d figured out a secret no one else had. It was something you were scared to talk about because of what happened here, right? You told someone you wanted to know what was over the other side and met only ridicule?”

My eyes held on her face for a long moment. They examined her every feature closely and wondered where all this was heading. “My parents,” I sigh. “It was my parents that I told that to, who then told the whole town.” I took several steps into the plowed dirt then turned back toward her. “Why are you asking me all of this? Why bring up all the things I’ve worked so long to bury?”

Mella looked back at me with the most sincerity I’ve ever seen a person show. “Because I want you to know I understand, Cad. I feel it too.” She took several steps toward me until we were face to face. “I brought this up today because I couldn’t stand watching someone disappear. My father would come home and tell me how your fields have improved and all I could think was how your face looked the day you were given the crofter pin. It was so easy to see that you wanted more than our world could give you, but after traveling across the known world I feel it too, the want to know more. Have you really lost that feeling?”

A knot formed in my stomach. “I have worked so hard to finally be accepted into this society, Mella. For years and years they resented me and I them, and for what? Because I wanted to see over a wall? I made a choice to have a decent life in an indecent world, finally becoming comfortable. I’m not going to throw that away for some adolescent dream.”

Mella stared down at the dirt for several seconds and then cleared her throat. “Well, I’m going to climb the wall. I’m going up there tomorrow. I’m going to finally go to the one place I haven’t been, to see what no one else has. If you want to join me then I’ll wait by the bell until dawn, then I’m leaving.” She began heading down the road.

“Make sure you take a picture to show me once you come back!” I yelled, feeling good about my decision, but every step she took, every second that passed, I felt more and more repulsed by my own words. The only reason I’d been miserable for so long was because of those around me. Anyone in town would’ve punished me for thinking or acting the way I did back then and especially now; the one time someone shares my ideals, I run them off. My life was decided by people that made me a pariah, and I defend them instead?

No.

I’ll meet her at the bell and we will take that wall.

– – –

Mella waited just as she promised and held little surprise on her face upon seeing me. She knew I would come, I couldn’t refuse this. The silent exchange of a nod followed by a quiet stride was all we needed, she knew I wasn’t lost.

After a long while I could tell our course. We took the mountain school trail to the highest peak, Shield Bearer and continued our ascent from there. The navy and white uniforms of the mountain school students became a common sight as we reached the infernal gates. I remembered doing the errands the sages were too lazy to do themselves, picking plants and mushrooms for salves, trimming the branches along the trail, I did them all. Mella pointed at one boy sitting in a small grove beneath a dense oak on a ridge, he stared up toward the wall. His face was lost in wonder, the mystical summit called to him as it did me. Mella gave a smile but nothing more, the silence a welcome change of pace as opposed to feeling it’s absence the last time I made this trek. Still, the worries of what awaited my return to the village loomed in the back of my mind. They will know I left, that I hadn’t perused the market for tools or new seeds to try as I do every evening during the preparation months. The only comforts that guided me were the surety we’d make it to the top and the palpable confidence that poured from Mella. She was incredible and deserved to inspire nations, not deliver mail.

We caught our breath at the summit of Shield Bearer, each of us taking a well earned sip of water and ate some of the provisions I packed.

Mella wiped the sweat off her face with a rag and stuffed it back into her bag. “The utility stairs built into the wall only go three quarters of the way up, then it’s line climbing. All the day side maintainers will be leaving now which gives us a window during shift change. If we can beat the night side up the stairs, then we are unstoppable.”

I nodded but stopped and cocked my head. “What happens if they catch us?” I asked.

“They will execute us for going against the word of the masters. No one climbs the wall, Cad. That’s why we have to make this count.”

Without even understanding my actions myself, I shot forward and wrapped Mella into a hug. She didn't fight it, just hugged me back.

“We’ll make it up there,” I whisper.

“Yea, “ she pauses, “we will.”

– – –

The base of the stairs is empty with the last of the maintainers making their way down the rivers of trails to their base camp in the mountains. The wall maintainer shift change would’ve happened at any second. The notes from day side must be given to night side before they marched back to the wall. This was our window.

Mella and I sprint and hit the stairs at full speed. The wall didn’t seem that tall looking at it from the tops of the mountains, but then I looked straight up the stairwell. Thousands. This would be miserable but we’ve made it this far, and the minute we step on the wall’s stairs we are criminals. She smiles, her face anxious and excited before ripping up the first couple of flights. Floor after floor we climb, making great pace considering the task at hand. I was never an athletic man, I just worked outside and I guess that counted for something today. I thought back to my fields, my corn, my comfortable bed, my triumph of the first successful harvest. Then it dawned on me, I was so worried about what will happen when I go back, but I won’t be. This is it, the final moment in my life, the final attempt at chasing a dream rather than conforming. Mella had come to terms with it, her excitement too intense to consider otherwise, but not me, I was climbing the stairway to the end of my life right as it was beginning.

After a couple of hours we made it to the top where the climbing lines began. It was an assorted netting of vertical ladders and horizontal cables that stretched across the length of the wall, something I’d never known was up here from my village vantage point. I started climbing the vertical ladder with Mella in tow. We were tired and out of both water and food. We weren’t far from the top and decided to take a moment hanging from the rungs to rest. If you wedged your legs against the wall and horizontal cables you could make a nice spot to take the weight off of your body which allowed decent rest. We weren’t there for more than five minutes when we heard a voice from below.

“Do not go higher. Come down at once. This is a one time order. Come down.” A man in a vibrant orange and green suit with a plastic dome over his head yelled up at us.

Panic showered across Mella’s face. “Go, go now, Cad. Go!”

We surged upward, climbing wildly, grabbing any cord or rung we could. An alarm began to blare loudly around us in a deafening moan.

Don’t stop. Keep moving up. Faster. Faster. Go.

I felt vibrations on the horizontal cable in my hands, more suited men attached hooks to the cables and were running along the wall.

Just a little higher.

My hands slapped onto the flat stone at the top of the wall. I made it. Holy shit, I made it. Mella wasn’t behind me. I look down, she’s kicking one of the suited men away from her ankles but more rushed in from the horizontal lines. Our eyes met, she’s so close. The men on either side grabbed her and held her in place.

“Go. Go, Cad. Take a picture for me, for us.” Mella smiles. “Live your dream.”

A sea of orange and green men enveloped her as they dragged her down the lines. Two of them looked up at me and began climbing. My face remained down, I was nervous. What if this was all for nothing, and there really is nothing. What does it matter? I’m here now. A blast of wind slammed into me like a wave crashing on the coast. This was my life and the moment that it's all been about wouldn’t wait for my courage to build. No one told me to do this, no one ordered or gave me this destiny. I’s not received a golden pin for this choice. It was mine and mine alone. The men climbing to get me grew louder in their approach. Now or never, to choose your own path or accept the one given.

I opened my eyes.

Green valleys carved through dozens of circular mountain ranges, each crowned with a similar massive wall. Other worlds like my own? A tenuous trail of smoke rose from deep within one of the valleys. Another person who escaped?

The two suited men stood behind me, wearing no tools or working equipment of any kind, only a stun baton and pistol. They aren’t workers, but enforcers specifically tasked to stop people like me. How many others attempted and failed or even succeeded? They stepped towards me, batons extended and crackling with electricity on the ends.

“I’m sorry, Mella. I’ll come back for you. I promise,” I shouted. I turned and took one of the singular ropes that draped down the outside of the wall and slid down. The two men just stared in disbelief. Wherever this path leads, I chose it, and I’ll follow it to the end.