The Wall

Officer Ramsey cringed. The blood still dripped off of the remains of what had once been a face. He held his eyes half open, praying internally that the man was dead, so that he would at least be free from the pain. However, he knew this was not the case. The mass of skin and bones began to move, and turned to face him.

The officer walked slowly into the hospital room. He settled his soft, heavy bulk down on a chair. He ruffled the handful of papers he had taken with him, trying to delay the inevitably.

Finally he looked up at the figure sitting on the bed in front of him. It was the figure of  a man. Or, it used to be the figure of a man. Officer Ramsey wasn't certain he could call it that any more.

Little remained that would clearly mark him as human. Blood dripped from every part of his body, and his face was a mangled mess. Broken bones jutted out from torn skin which hung from him like rags. The paper Ramsey had identified the man as being named Jerald, though he doubted anyone would recognize the face.

However, somehow the man clung to consciousness, forcing himself to be awake. Once more Officer Ramsey wished that wasn't true, and the man could at least have the respite of unconsciousness.

“Alright, Jerald” the officer said “why don’t you tell me what happened?”

“I… I don’t know. I don’t think you’ll understand” the man said. He spoke in a quivering voice filled with the kind of dread reserved for those who were certain they were going to die, and sometimes those that wished they were already dead.

“Well, can you try? Can you make me understand?”

“Welll… alright. But you have to do as I ask,” the man replied.

“What… I… uh… alright.”

“Good. I want you to stop breathing.”

“WHAT!?” Officer Ramsey shouted, almost standing out of his chair.

The man got angry, raising his voice against the officer. “You said you would do it! You said anything I needed to make you understand. I told you to hold your breath, do it!”

“Alright, alright! FINE!” Officer Ramsey made a show of inhaling and holding his breath. These damn nutjobs always made him work for his money.

“Are you doing it? Are you holding your breath?”

He nodded.

“Can you feel the nagging feeling, calling on you to open your mouth and inhale? Can you resist it?

Do you see how unnatural it is?”

Ramsey nodded again, slightly confused.

“Breathing is what keeps you inside this world. It is something your body does without thought, without command. You have to tell yourself not to do it. DO you see what I mean? If you don't think, you will breath. If you force yourself not to, your body will try to make you.

That is what it feels like.

Feel an itch? Don’t scratch it.”

Officer Ramsey had to stop himself from reaching down to his leg for that very reason. Jerald noticed, and smiled to himself.

“It’s an odd thing, isn’t it? Here is a function of your body to tell you when there is something wrong. It is there to protect you. It will keep you safe from poisonous insects and deadly diseases. Like breathing, it will force you to act, and you will have to fight your own mind to keep from scratching.

But it can be so easily deceived. All I have to do is mention it, and you start to feel it. Nine times out of ten, it is nothing. Most of the time, when it is something, it perhaps could have been ignored. but it is the one time in a thousand, when there is something truly horrid on your skin, that makes all the others worth while.

Even if you know it is almost guaranteed that there is nothing there, that the odds against it being an insect in your skin are a thousand to one, a million to one, or a billion to one, your body still demands you to do it to be sure. It is always better to be sure.

That is what it feels like.

Can you resist it? If not, I can’t blame you.

Then again, it means you can’t blame me for what I did either.

Still holding your breath?

Did you manage to resist the urge for that long? If you didn’t, I can’t blame you. You gave into the constant, nagging feeling that you must do something. Then you must understand how I felt.

If you are still holding your breath, let me ask you this. Are you conscious?”

Officer Ramsey nodded, and gave the madman a strange look.

Jerald continued.

“Are you sure?

If you were unconscious, would you know it? You may very well have passed out from lack of air.

Your mind would shut you down.

But it wouldn’t let you know you’ve shut down.

It would tell you were awake. It would make you dream, show you images and play you sounds you can’t tell from reality. Drowning men think they are on land. Unconscious boxers think they are still fighting. Men spend years in comas, their minds telling them they are in another place, in another time, and they have no way to tell the difference.


So let me ask again, are you conscious? If you are certain the answer is yes, let me ask you something else. Are you a fool...

or are you a liar?

If you are a liar, who are you lying to? Me?

Or yourself?

Another question.

Are you alive?

Same as before?

You may breath now, if you haven’t already."


Officer Ramsey gasped for breath. Really, he was shocked he had made it that long. What was this guy trying to prove?

Jerald looked at him with an air of disapproval that was somehow still visible through the mass of blood on his face.

“You don’t get it yet, do you?” Jerald asked.


“No I don’t you freaking madman! What do you mean by making me hold my breath that long!? Are you trying to kill me? I asked what had happened, not for some stupid line stolen from the Matrix!”

Jerald sighed, and kept talking. “Look, to understand what happened, you needed to understand how I felt. DO you get it now?”

“YES!  Just tell me what happened!”

Jerald shook his head, and continued.

“Before it happened I had a room to myself in an old apartment building.

Everything in it was perfect.

The walls were painted in a solid dark blue color. There was one window kept constantly shut and with the blinds closed. There were no paintings on the walls, they would only clutter it. To the immediate right of the door was a perfectly clean small fridge, sink, and stove that served as my kitchen. All the food was arrayed in perfect lines in their proper place, so I always knew where they were. To the immediate right of the door was a perfectly straight line of shoes in front of a closet where my clothes were hung in the proper order. There was a narrow bed in the far left corner, always properly made. There was a night stand with a dim lamp beside it, the only light I needed. In the right corner was a door that led to a simple, functional bathroom.  Everything was perfectly organized, perfectly placed, and perfectly straight in its right place. It was everything I needed.

Every night, I would make sure it was perfect. I’d check the fridge, seeing everything in its proper place. I’d touch everything inside to see if I could feel them. Then, I’d close my eyes and do the same, in case my eyes were lying and my hands believed them.

I’d check my clothes and my shoes, lined up perfectly in the closet. Again, I’d see them, then touch them, then repeat the process with my eyes closed. If I could ensure they were always in the exact right place, in the perfect, strait lines each time, I could be certain they were there.

I’d check everything the same way. My tv stand, my bathroom, my bed.  The lock on my door must always be locked and the window must always be shut so that nothing could come in to disturb the perfection of my room.

I’d finish by going around the room, tapping on all the walls.

Tap, tap, tap.

I’d make sure that my hands and ears always agreed with my eyes. My hands must stop where my eyes said the wall was, my ears must hear the sound.

Then I’d do the same thing again with my eyes closed. I’d turn of the light, and turn it on again lest it lit up a different room then the one I was in before. I’d check everything again, and if they were all the same, I could sleep. After this I couldn’t touch anything but the bed. If I turned on the light, it may create a different room, and I’d have to check it again. If I knocked something over, it may not land where it was supposed to, and I would have to check to see that it was where my eyes told me it was. If I kept going, I could never stop.

There were times when I would spend days on end, going over everything again and again and again and again and again… Each time something new would happen, something would change, and I’d have to start over again.

Some people told me I had a problem. They took me to see a doctor, and he tried to get me to stop.

But how could I?

It was like breathing. I didn’t do it because I wanted to; I did it because I had to. If I didn’t think of it, my body would do it on its own. I’d have to order it not to. If I tried to order it too stop, then the feeling would grow inside until I simply had to do it. Nothing else could get done. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t even breath unless I knew that the room was real.

Or, it was like the itch. It was nagging me, telling me something was wrong. I may be almost certain the room was there, but could I ever be completely certain? Even if it was a billion to one that the room existed, did it not make sense to check just one more time, to make it a billion and one to one? Does not the horror of having been deceived by your own senses outweigh the moments it takes to tap on the wall?

So, you see, I had no choice but to continue doing it, as you now have no choice but to breathe, or to feel an itch. If I could check, then I could be that much more sure that everything was there, and I could rest. Everything was perfect, everything was in its right place.

For years, it went on like this. For years, it was perfect. Every night I had the same routine, without thinking. Check all the walls, then I could sleep.

One day, I left early for work. I checked everything before I left, and spent the day in an effort, then left to walk home.

Something was… odd.

The air around me seemed to give way slowly around me. It was moist and thick, like syrup pouring on a plate.   I thought it smelled strange, but I wasn’t sure. There was a hint of iron in it,that was so light I was barely certain I noticed it. Sound moved slowly, as if weighed down by the thick air, and I was sure I could count the seconds between a man’s lips moving and his voice hitting me. Perhaps it was just that I felt time itself differently. Even the lights glistened less than usual, and refused to travel where it would normally go.  Everything swirled and formed waves around me, moving as it wished without any thought of what or where it should go, or how I would perceive it.

My limbs moved oddly, floating slowly on their own accord through the syrupy air. They knew where I wanted to go, and I let them take me. Everything felt like a dream, but I knew I was awake. My thoughts flew in circles and caressed me as they may, with no regard for what I told them. Jump of a bridge, one said, it didn’t matter, all is a dream. Fly, another said, and drink the water the flows in the sky.

I felt like laughing, I felt like crying, and I felt certain that my body didn’t care whether I wanted to laugh or cry as it could decide on its own what was good for me. I let it carry me back to my apartment, and opened the door.

And something had changed.

I wasn’t sure of it at first. It took me a second to process it.

Everything was exactly as I had left it, but it wasn’t.

All the shows, all the food, all the walls were exactly as I remembered.

But they weren’t.

Now I know this sounds odd, like I am contradicting myself, but I assure you I am not. It was a strange feeling, a bizarre knowledge that the room I had walked into was not the room I had left that morning. If I were to show you a photograph of someone you loved, no matter how clear and how perfect, you would know it was not really them, just a representation. A computer program, no matter how well made, can only imitate a mind so well, and in the end is only regurgitating what was given, not thinking on its own. We can tell it isn’t real, anyway can. And my room was like that. Everything was exactly right. And everything was exactly wrong.

I went around the room, tapping the walls.

Tap, tap, tap…

I hit every wall where I should have, where my eyes told me they were. Then, to check again, I closed my eyes and reached forward.

And hit nothing.

My hand went straight through where the wall should have been, where my eyes had told me it was.

I opened my eyes, reached out again, and hit the wall.

I closed them, reached out, and hit nothing.

I tried again. I didn't want to, I wanted to go back to the calm and quiet world I lived in, where everything was certain... but I couldn't. It wasn't my choice, any more than it is your choice to breath. I closed my eyes, reached out...

and hit nothing.

I stood staring for what seemed like hours, trying to understand what had just happened. In a hundred million trials, never had my eyes and my hands disagreed with each other.

But now, on the hundred million and first trial, they were wrong. Even a one in a million chance will occur eventually, and I had hit that number.

The wall was there, and it wasn’t.

Eyes open, it was there.

Eyes closed, it wasn’t.

I tried again. I thought there had to be some kind of mistake. Maybe if I reached once more, it would change. I reacheed again, and again, and again, trying to make sense of what had happened. I screamed as loud as I could, pounding my fists on the wall and into the dull empty air where they should have been.

THIS SHOULDN”T BE. THIS COULD NOT BE. BUT IT WAS.

There was a wall, then there was nothing, then there was a wall, then there was nothing.

I cried in desperation, striking it with every part of my body, closing my eyes and opening them, hoping againd hope, praying to a thousand deities I never even knew for SOMETHING to make sense of what was happening.

And nothing did. Everything I had ever known, everything I ever thought, was gone in a second. The walls themselves could not exist where they should.


I tried to fix it. I thought that there was something wrong with my eyes. I rubbed them, pushed into them harder and harder until my vision blurred and turned red.

But the results were the same.

Maybe it was my hands. I tried with my feet, my shoulders, my head… every part of my body for hours on end until they were bleeding and broken.

But the results were the same.

I broke down, screaming and crying, begging for something to fix it. And nothing could

And that is when you found me.”

Officer Ramsey stared at Jerald for a moment. His story did match up with what they had found.

The police had replied to reports of continuous screaming and banging from his neighbours. When they had arrived, they had found him banging his fists against the walls again and again, crying as he did. His hands were both broken, as were many of the bones in all his limbs. His eyes had been all but gouged out, and he could barely see. His skin hung in flaps, dripping blood which pooled at his feet.

And the wall stood in front of him, almost as broken as he was. The wood was cracked and shattered, with nails and splinters sticking out at odd ends. His blood was smeared all over it, forming patterns where his hands had hit the hardest.

“Alright… I am going to contact a doctor, I am su…” Officer Ramsey was interrupted by the madman’s snickering.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“You won’t check, will you?”

“What do you mean? Check what?” Ramsey asked.

“The wall. I told you this story, and you just glance over it in a second. You’re a coward.”

“WHAT?!”

The madman leaned forward, pointing a bruised and broken stump that had once been a finger at Ramsey. “You are afraid. Logically, you should check this. I have told you a story, and it is only a moment for you to go down and see if I was right.

But you won’t. You are just going to assume I am insane, and reassign this entire night to the portion of your mind reserved for nonsense. You don’t care if it is real or not. You just want to forget, so you can live in peaceful, blissful ignorance, never accepting anything that might make you question things. Go ahead, I suppose  I can’t stop you.

BUT I KNOW WHAT I SAW. I know what I FELT. And I know that in the deepest reaches of your mind, there is a part of you saying that something is wrong. There is something begging you to check, begging you to question and at least find out for sure if what I was saying was true. But you won’t. You’ll stay here, and keep your peace of mind. Go ahead, I don’t blame you. I wish I had done the same.”

With that, the madman began to wobble. He started gasping for breath, and his arms stretchered out right in along the bed. What remained of his eyes rolled back into his head, and he collapsed sideways into the space between himself and Ramsey.

Ramsey stood up screaming for help, and it came into the room in a moment. A team of nurses rushed to the mains aid, helping him and forcing Ramsey out of the room.

Finally he stood in the hallway just outside. Suddenly he felt exhausted, as the night’s events had weighed him down heavily. The air felt thick, and his limbs felt like they were floating slowly around him. Even his thoughts were hard to control, and they moved around him as if on their own accord…

He yawned, closed his eyes, and reached out to lean against the wall….

And felt nothing.