Voices of the Past

If walls could talk…

I’ve always hated that statement. Walls can talk. We can hear, see, feel. I should know, as I am one.

Borne of primordial molten minerals, crystalized and cooled over centuries. Shoved to the surface over eons of volcanic erosion and continental drift. Torn from my home by violent explosion and invasive drilling. Shaped and honed, polished and erected by so-called expert hands.

As if any artisan could improve upon the perfection of nature’s creation.

My life began in vicious, viscous heat and will end in cold, quiet erosion… finally reclaimed by the planet in which I was formed.

I am granite, hear me roar.

But you can’t hear me. Well, you can. But you won’t. Humans—beings whose arrival was millennia after my birth and whose lifespans are so fleeting—have an arrogance I can’t fathom. In the grand scheme, you are but a microscopic blip on an infinite timeline, yet you act as though you are the only beings of significance, ignoring so many messages around you, deaf and blind to anything but that which you create. Correction… that which you think you create. You find it impossible to acknowledge those of us who precede you. We who inspire and impact your every decision, every movement. Even your every breath.

So, here I stand. More vital than you, more substantial, yet receiving no accolades. No acknowledgment. Despite the facets of quartz and flecks of mica that define my natural magnificence, you’ve taken credit for my beauty and brag about my stately splendor as if you created it yourself.

Well, your forebears did. You—today’s current iteration of human creature—boast not. Instead, you largely ignore me.

Inside my four walls linger the ghosts of your past. I am a vault, holding your histories for any who seek it. It’s been generations since any of you visited with regularity. Gone are the days when one or more passed frequently through my doors to pay respects, utter a prayer, or even to have a quick visit. Now, you come only to bury your dead, sliding ornate boxes into engraved slots in my walls, entrusting me to keep them safe in eternal silence.

Ironic, as the ones you leave behind are anything but silent.

Some ruminate about past loves—when young couples snuck kisses outside the halo of porch lights, when women’s bellies swelled with the promise of new life, when babies took their first toddling steps. Others share secrets of ill-gotten gains and fast-squandered fortunes, of riches spent on lavish homes and designer clothes, on exotic vacations and luxury cars.

But the loudest of the voices come from the ones who shouldn’t be here. The ones illicitly added to the first residents who joined me. Theirs aren’t happy tales or sad lamentations but rather shrieks of injustice. Wails for retribution. Howls of righteous fury. These are the voices that never quiet, echoing throughout every stone corner I possess until I nearly vibrate from the onslaught.

Not that I can blame them. They suffered in life, and they suffer still… indignities no one should have to bear. Yet did I not endure more? Did I not form in a lava core? Did I not burst forth as this planet heaved and cleaved? Did I not have bits of myself blown apart and chiseled away to become a glorified storage unit for your kind? And now I have to listen to this? Why should I be continually punished at the hands of my lessers?

They do not go gentle, day or night. They rage, rage, rage.

As do I, on my worst days. Though you do not hear me. My cries fall on the ears of stone angels, whose wings stretch across my lintel. They fall on the insects who scurry across my gritty floor. They fall on the moss and lichen who stand sentry over our rotting guests.

My cries pass, unheard, through the specters who haunt me.

Why? Because even dead, your kind are oblivious to me.

My door swings open. Blue-white cones of artificial light dance across polished crypts and cobwebbed corners, my mineral flecks twinkling like stars in a universe of stone. Agents rush inside, talking about anonymous tips and open investigations. A few assault my slabs with crude iron tools while vengeful spirits cry that justice is about to be served.

When the last of the murdered corpses is photographed and cataloged, the ghosts breathe sighs of relief. Even the spirits who belong here fall silent out of respect.

Then the human in charge—the one with the badge around her neck and “F.B.I.” emblazoned on the back of her jacket—turns to one of her subordinates. She shakes her head and says, “What kind of sick monster hides his victims in a mausoleum?”

He stares at the bags of bodies awaiting transport. “I hardly know where to begin. An anonymous source isn’t much to go on.”

She sighs. “If only walls could talk.”