The Wall

Your heart is beating like a freight train in your chest. Endless rolling of steel wheels over an uneven track over and over again, the noise deafening you until you can’t hear anything else.

There is you. And there is the massive brick wall in front of you.

It is built impossibly high, so high that the time-weathered rust-red bricks seem to stretch endlessly into the cloudless sky above you. The wall stretches out to the left and the right of you, so far in either direction that you could walk for a hundred years and never reach the end. You come to a gut-wrenching conclusion. The only way forward is over the wall.

But going over the wall is hard. It’s painful. It would be so much easier to tuck tail and go back to where you came from. Where it’s safe. But you’ve traveled so far to get here, to this wall. Why not at least try to go over it?

So you do. You dig your short nails into the bricks, grasping for purchase as you swing your legs around looking for a foothold. But nothing sticks. You’re left flailing like a bass on a line as you finally let go and hit the dirt with a hard thud, pain ringing through your bones.

Something big crashes through the trees behind you as you jump to your feet. Something is coming. It’s been chasing you your whole life. It’s only gotten stronger as you’ve gotten older. You’ve gotten pretty good at ignoring it. But the beast is here, ready to devour you if you do not go over that wall.

You grow desperate. You try jumping, hugging the wall with all your might. You get nothing in return except angry red scratches across your arms and legs. The beast growls behind you, drawing closer with every heartbeat.

You look back at the trees. Maybe you could climb a tree and leap over the top of the wall? No, there was no telling what was on the other side. Could you call for help? No. You had to figure this out on your own. You’ve always been the independent one. The strong one. The one to hold everyone else’s burdens when they become too heavy.

Then you realize. You’re holding an extremely heavy backpack on your back. When did that get there? Quickly you shrug it off, the sack of stones hitting the dirt like a dead body. You feel a million times lighter, like if you tried you could sail like a feather through the wind. So you try.

The beast is quiet for now, so you close your eyes. You take a deep breath in and out and you feel everything, for the first time in a long, long time. You feel the sun on your face. You feel the squishy dirt between your toes. You feel the cool breeze brush across your skin. Your own heart beats more calmly in a steady, drum-like rhythm instead of a roaring hurricane in your chest.

When you finally open your eyes, the wall doesn’t seem so large. The task before you is not so daunting, because you realize anything could be on the other side of that wall. Sure it’s scary, not knowing what lies ahead. But isn’t that the exciting part? Knowing anything could be waiting for you over there? It could be a brand new sports car or a three layer chocolate cake or absolutely nothing at all! But It’s certainly better than going back to where you came from, isn’t it?

So you try to change the wall. You step up to the bricks and try to reshape them with your hands, forcefully attempting to turn this solid wall of stone into a door or an opening that you can at least crawl through.

But the beast is watching. A growl echoes low in its throat. You feel your heart race. Are you running out of time?

You try harder, kicking the bricks with everything you’ve got. Surely if you just force it to change the wall will give in, right? It’s got to eventually. But will whatever is on the other side of the wall waiting for you still be there when it does? You’re not sure.

Okay, trying to change the wall is not working. Then you realize something.

Maybe it’s not the wall that has to change. Maybe it’s you.

You take a step back, breathing in and out, calming yourself the best way you know how. You’ve been through so much to get here, no sense in giving up now.

You look down at your arms and legs; the same ones you’ve had your whole life. Experimentally, you tug on one of your fingers. To your surprise, it stretches! Like moldable putty in your hands it moves, morphing until it’s twice the size it used to be. You try something else, something more drastic. You take your right arm in your left and you pull gently. Your arm stretches until it’s twice as long as it used to be! You’re changing like some anthropomorphic Gumby. It doesn’t hurt. It’s just… different.

The beast roars like a lion behind you, drawing closer and closer.

You get an idea.

You grab both feet in your hands until they begin to stretch, growing longer and longer until they are taller than the trees! You stretch your arms out to match until before you know it you are standing in the sky, looking down at the backpack full of rocks that’s just a small dark speck way below you on the ground.

You laugh! You sing to the heavens and holler with joy!

You stretch and stretch until you finally reach the top of the wall.

The beast circles below you, pacing with hungry ambition. But you ignore it. It can’t hurt you way up here. It’s such a little thing now, way down there with the backpack full of rocks.

You swing one ginormous leg over the top of the wall, which takes a while since you’re so stretchy now. You hear your foot hit the ground on the other side with a thud. You’re doing it! You’re climbing over the wall one step at a time. You swing your other leg over just as the beast lunges at you, desperate to take a piece of you while it still can. But it misses.

For a moment, you sit on the top of the wall, just watching the world go by. You don’t look down yet, even though you know your feet are on solid ground. You risk one final look backwards at everything you left behind. The place you came from. The backpack full of rocks. The beast. These are all things you don’t need anymore. You’ve done it all on your own, and there is a beautiful land of plenty just waiting to welcome you home.

You smile, take a brave leap towards the new side of the wall, and take your first step into your new life.