The Witness

“If walls could talk,” they say. Well, we can but you’re simply not listening. Well, perhaps not listening is not quite accurate. It's more that you can’t understand us. This is different to someone from one country speaking to another and despite a language barrier, you can get the gist of what they’re saying and communicate in other, simpler ways, gesticulating hands, written words etc. I, as a wall, can’t do that.

I have no hands to shake, point or write with. No eyes to stare, blink, and wink with. No ears to hear with.

Clarice paints me dark green. She drives nails into me (don’t worry, I am a wall, it doesn’t hurt) to hang pictures and hooks for trailing plants that hang on ropes. Clarice keeps the windows open, the sun spreads across the floor while a black cat follows the rays like a furry sundial. A mattress is on the floor, unmade and covered in mismatched pillows and blankets. Sometimes the cat flexes its claws on the carpeted floor leaving patches ripped and uneven. Other women join Clarice sometimes, they paint on canvas boards or play games on a small tv or smoke long cigarettes out the window. One day she is gone and takes her cat and another woman with her.

As a wall, I perceive time differently than how you might, days can pass in the blink of an eye, and weeks roll into months roll into years before I’ve noticed a change.

Ahmed paints the walls white, muttering to himself as he does so. He takes down the dead, dry plants and pulls out the nails, filling in the cracks with cheap filler. The paint is thick, droplets dry mid-fall making my surface uneven. He pulls up the torn carpet, replaces it with nothing.

It’s dark for a while. The sun and moon cycle across the small window. I watch the leaves change, the roofs are blanketed with white then back to slate. Have you ever seen the sun in an empty room? Dust sparkles in the light in slowly swirling clouds of diamonds. It settles on the floor in thin layers. Ahmed sweeps it away and washes the floor with soapy water.

Karl is here in the blink of an eye. He does not repaint the walls, he hangs garlands and pictures of farm animals from string and temporary fixings. His daughter clings to him like a shadow. She tries to sleep in this room, I would sing her a lullaby if I could. She cries, Karl arrives, and they watch the stars from the window. The sun rises and they are gone.

Richard and Hyun-ae paint me red. Richard has read online somewhere that it will brighten up the room. He brings a desk and a chair and hangs pictures and posters of fantastical creatures. Hyun-ae doesn’t visit often, I see her in glimpses through the cracks in the door, as breaks of light in the gaps. I like Hyun-ae. She painted me in small strokes, with tape along the corners and a roller freshly cleaned. I do not like Richard. He drags his chair along the wooden floor, his posters are stuck with blu-tack and peel at my paint, he rests his boots against the bare wall, and he paces endlessly back and forth andbackandforthandbackandforth. Hyun-ae is gone. Others pass through this terminal, breaking the light but not like Hyun-ae did. Night falls, and he is gone.

This time it is Ahmed’s son who paints me white. He does it carefully, reverentially even. He removes the nails, fills the holes, and tidies the floor, leaves a window open.

A bird comes in black, large and tatty around the edges. It looks at me curiously, its head cocked to the side and standing on one leg. Hello, little bird. I say. The bird can’t hear me for I am a wall and it is a bird. It tries to leave but cannot find the gap in the window. It’s there! Just a little higher! I cry. It cries. Ahmed’s son is gone. The bird lies in the centre of the room, surrounded by splatters of its waste, claw marks on the wooden floor, and feathers scattered in random piles. I do not know how long it lies there. Ahmed’s son puts in a carpet.

Jennifer is alone, she's old and doesn't mind the white walls. She doesn't have the energy to paint them now. Her son puts up pictures of her family, husband, and grandchildren. Jennifer spends a lot of time in this room, she has a tall chair that reclines and is angled toward the mid-afternoon sun. A pile of books and magazines lay stacked beside her. She has a cat, long-haired and sandy-coloured. It sits with her most days or in the window, chattering at birds and watching the world sweep by. One day, the cat finds a feather. Long, black and tatty around the edges. Jennifer presses the feather into a book, writes a note next to it, and says words to it. Jennifer is alone in the room now and has been for some time. The cat is gone, I don’t know when it left. Her son and others in dark green outfits arrive to carry her away, she doesn’t resist. The curtains are pulled tightly closed. Dust settles on the chair, the pictures, and the book with the feather from the bird pressed inside it. I am alone for a long time. There is no breeze to make the dust dance or sun to make it sparkle. Jennifer's son arrives and clears the room.

Ahmed’s son returns to the now empty room flanked by figures in suits with clipboards and wolfish grins. He is older, greying at his temples, valleys forming on his forehead. The figures in suits run hands along my surface, they take notes, make measurements.

Now, I am stripped away. Layers of white upon red upon white upon green upon white. The wooden floor where the black tatty bird scratched and the cat pulled and the sparkling dust settled is now carpeted in an uncoloured beige. Fragments of me have torn away, expanding the room and reshaping the home. Desks are moved in, chairs and filing cabinets. This is not the space where Clarice lived, where Karl comforted, where Richard paced, where the bird died, and where Jennifer aged.

I bore witness to them all.

A hundred vivid sparks of beautiful mundanity.

I hold these scenes within my brick, in the layers of paint and paper, written in stains and wear and tear.