2001-11-08 - 12:14 a.m.

Some of my more faithful readers may remember a while back when I posted a poem on here called "Granite Guardian." It's the only poem I've ever posted on here and probably the only one I'll post anywhere. I'm not a poet. I don't write poetry, well, for reasons I understand, but can't really put to words. (Though I guess that in and of itself would be a reason not to right poetry, huh?) But that one was significant.

In truth, one day a short story popped into my head. Something with a subtle depth and meaning to it that I understand, and probably no one else would if I didn't tell them. Which is not to say that it's all that profound and no one would get it because it's far too intellectual and blah blah, but simply that I never really hint in the whole thing as to what it's actually about. So anyone can make it about whatever they want, but chances are it won't be what I'm thinking.

Anyway, the day the story popped into my head, I was working on a series of poems for the first half of a semester-long Creative Writing class. The first half was poetry, the second half was fiction. The story worked for both halves, and I was trying to work on a series of poems that was do in a few days, so the story was turned into a poem. And that's how it stayed. I never fully wrote or told the story to anyone after that. I kind of gave a synopsis to a few people, but that's it. Today, as the meaning of the story has come back to me once more, I've decided to write it, one draft, right here. I hope you enjoy it.

It's cold today. I wake up curled in my blankets, my arms are pulled under so they don't have to feel it. It's only been a few days, so I don't need to build a fire before bed yet, but I will soon. Through the window I can see light on the trees. The clouds aren't out today. That's a good thing, otherwise I'd have trouble making my way.

Pulling my coat on I step outside, crunching down my gravel walkway to the dirt road in front of my cabin. I look down the path, to the north, through the shadow falling on my home. It's still early morning, I think. It feels that way, anyway. I look toward the wall in the distance. I hope with all my heart that today the sun will make it over, even just for a moment. That for just an instant I can feel its warm glow again. But it hasn't made it up for days. I know it's not going to again for a long time.

I love those days. The five days of the year when the sun makes it over the wall. When my home is lit not by the bright blue sky or the dark gray clouds but by the sun. Like God Himself is looking down on me, happily, making my feel the world will be okay. And then it's gone, and I have to wait again.

When I was a child, my father would bring me books all the time. I'd read them by the light of our oil lamps. They told fabulous stories of a world where the sun rises every day. Where low, gray clouds, packed with rain or snow, are not enough to blind the world, but rather just enough to make everything a little more depressing. A world where millions of people are together, laughing, crying, smiling, loving, hating, feeling with each other. A world where I wouldn't be alone.

And one day, as he lay in his bed, his last breaths more daunting of a task than his years of fending for himself out here, he told me that those books were all true. That that world exists out there, beyond the wall. That if I could find my way past the wall, my dreams would come true. But he warned me to be careful. For he, too, had tried to make it past the wall and failed, and the anguish nearly killed him.

He, however, never tried as hard as I did. I know this because he still referred to it as a wall when he died. He didn't know the truth. I do, though it took a lot to find out. And I'll never be the same.

I've been to the "wall" before. During times when I felt desperate to see the sun again I've tried. The first time, I didn't know how far away it was. I thought I could make it in just a few hours. I didn't take any food, a blanket, anything. I wasn't prepared. I only made it halfway before I realized how much farther I had to go.

I still had no idea how much more I had to learn.

The second time I went, I made it to the wall, but had no idea where to go from there. It went seemingly straight up in the air and stretched on for as far as I could see. Directly under the shadow, I could barely see anything at all except the road behind me, the sky above me, which was turning a deep purple, and the forest on either side. I decided the forest was my best choice. I turned right and started walking, keeping the wall on my left. Finally, long after the purple sky had turned black, I pulled the heavy fur blanket I had rolled up on my back, laid down on the ground and slept.

I don't know how to explain what happened that night. I woke up the next morning, and could no longer see the wall. I was somewhere deeper in the forest, in a place I've never been to before. The trees were so thick they were blocking the sky from me in every direction. I decided all I could do was walk, and walk I did, hoping I would be able to find something. By the middle of the day, the trees seemed to get thinner, and I could see the sky through the trees. A bright blue, that much I could see, but I had no idea what else there was, or if I'd made any progress on my journey. Finally I found a break in the trees, and at that break was a narrow dirt road. To get my bearings, I looked left down the road, but didn't see anything I recognized. I looked to the right, and far in the distance, I saw it. The wall. All that walking and I was miles farther back then I'd been when I laid down to sleep that night. I didn't understand what had happened, but I knew there was more going on here than I had been prepared to expect. And I knew I had to make it past someday.

The next time I went was almost a year later. Those five days I wait for every year had come. It was time for the sun to come up, and the one thing I spend all year dreading happened. Something that can leave me depressed for the entire rest of the year. The clouds came out. Floating low in the sky, blanketing it in darkness, they threatened to destroy it. The only solace I could take was that for the few hours that the sun would be up, the clouds were a light gray, casting down enough light to see, instead of the thick solid dark gray that left behind too little light on the ground to function outside.

Feeling insanely cheated by the idea that I might miss the sun this year, I set out for the path again. With a few vegetables from my garden and a loaf of bread in my sack, and a rolled-up, thinner blanket hanging from my waist, I set out for the wall, full of determination. I decided to make it past the wall or die trying. And I nearly did.

My determination must have pushed me faster than I normal, because when I got to the wall, there was still enough light that I could still see, barely. Remembering what had happened the time before, I decided that I had to keep going that day, even though I didn't know what I was going to do.

That's when I noticed how old the wall really was. Worn away with time, small bits of rock were broken away from the granite face, leaving little holes all over it. I grabbed onto one, seeing if it would hold my weight, and it did. So I just started climbing. I figured if the sun could make it over the wall, then logically that meant there was a top I could reach eventually, too. So that's what I tried to do. Reach, grab, lift, step, lift, grab, lift. I scratched my hands against the rock. My knees burned with pain. My lungs ached. My whole body started to feel heavier and heavier with each inch up the wall. But still I was making progress. I was getting far enough that my body kept telling me to stop, but my mind told me that I should keep going. And so I did. I kept pushing myself.

As the strain got worse, I felt like eventually I was just going to lose feeling in my hands and that would be it. But that didn't happen. It didn't have a chance to happen.

As I climbed, and the day wore on, I watched as the clouds, floating at the top of the wall, slowly thinned, until I could see little bits of the darkening sky behind them. Finally, except for wisps of feathery white far above the top of the wall, the clouds were gone, and only the dark blue sky was visible.

Then, without warning, a strange grinding sound came from high above me. I looked up, and a massive rock face was looking down at me. And then…

It smiled.

Hanging there, my eyes grew wide, I leaned back, and my foot slipped from its hold. Before I could do anything, I was falling to the ground. The face tilted back and laughed. And in the time before I hit the ground I could feel the laugh pounding through my chest and watch the ripples shaking through the nearby clouds. There was no fear of the dirt path rushing toward me because I couldn't take my eyes off that face.

I think my foot hit first. It's the only explanation I can find. I don't remember how I landed because I was knocked out when I hit. I woke up laying on the path. My blanket and pouch lay on the ground a few feet away, and my head throbbed in pain. It wasn't until I pulled myself up, clutching my head that I noticed the strange way my foot was turned kind of to the right of where it was supposed to be. That's when I screamed out in pain, clutching my leg. I looked up to see if that… thing was up there laughing at me, but the clouds were back again, obscuring the top. I didn't imagine it. I knew that. I couldn't have. And really, at the time, wasn't so much worried about what I'd seen before I fell, but rather the stabbing pain in my ankle.

Whimpering, I dragged myself to side of the road and leaned myself against a tree. Staring at my disfigured leg, I did the only thing I could think to do and twisted it back in the right direction, sending a searing electric pain up my entire leg. I found a long, thick branch on the ground, blown down during the heavy winds of the winter. I propped myself up on it and tried to make it to my pouch and blanket, laying in the road. Halfway there, my foot scraped against the ground, and I found myself on the ground, my face bruised, my hands cut, and my arm scraped up by the branch. I dragged myself to the blanket and pulled it over to me, wrapping the leg up to hold my foot in place. I took the branch, lifted myself up, picked up my pouch, and started the long, painful trek home.

Today is the day. Today is my last attempt, one way or another. I've been preparing since that last trip. If I fail today, I won't be able to try again. I spent the last year healing, working my foot to try to get it so I can walk right again. I still walk with a limp, but I can manage. I've also been preparing my home for the trip. I've been eating everything I had stored. I haven't been preparing for the coming winter, because for me, there won't be a coming winter at this house. All I have left to eat is a single loaf of bread. If I fail, if I give up, I starve. This is it.

And so, with that, I put the bread in my pouch, grab my light blanket—the one from my last trip—a walking stick, fashioned from the one I used to get me home that day, and one final thing. My ax. I lifted the ax over my shoulder and was on my way.

The sky hasn't even started getting dark when I get to the end of the path. I don't know how that's possible. Limping on my ankle, which never healed right, in just a couple of hours, I made a trek that normally would take me all day. But understand or not, I'm here. Staring up the length of the wall, I can't see the face, but the clouds aren't there to obscure it, either. I know it's up there.

"HEY!" I scream at it. I don't even know if it's able to hear me, or if it's even able to hear at all. But I have to see it again, to know it's really there. That I'd really seen it. Suddenly it starts. The grinding noise I'd heard so long ago. High above me, I watch as that giant head turns down toward me. It smiles again, mischievously.

"Back again?" Its voice booms down at me. I can feel the words as much as I can hear them. But even as I'm reeling from the amazing sound, something strikes me about it. It was like the thing was challenging me. Whatever it was doing, I'm determined to beat it.

"I *will* make it past!" I yell back up at it. I put my hand against the rock, feeling it, thinking. I mutter to myself, "and I'll make it past today." The rock shakes against my hand as a powerful laughter buffets my body. I look up to see the head, tilted back, laughing at me. After a few seconds, it looks back down to watch me.

I'm filled with emotions. Despair, as I wonder how I could ever beat something like that. Fear as I think of what will happen if I fail, of what it could do to make me fail. But most of all anger. Anger at this… this thing that obviously doesn't believe I can beat it. I scream out in anger, throwing my pouch to the ground and lifting my ax above my head, keeping my eyes on the face, looking down at me.

Swinging my ax with all my might, I turn to face the wall, and I swear, in that split-second as I turned away, I saw that face twist into a grin. I'm not deterred, though. I push the swing even harder, filled with rage.

My heart starts to sink at what's happening even in the moments before it's done. I watch as the head of the ax slams into the wall and shatters into pieces. Behind it the handle splinters away, and I am left holding the tattered, broken remains of the handle. I drop what's left in my hand and collapse to the ground next to it.

I don't know what is left that I can do. I tried going around, I tried going over. I tried just destroying the damned thing, and none of it worked. And now, here I am, completely at a loss. I could try to climb it again, but I know I'd never make it this time, and I have no idea what other surprises that thing would have waiting for me if I tried. I should just give up, I think. The best thing I could do at this moment is to give up, probably go home and just wait to die. There is nothing left for me here but a bit of bread. And I don't know how I can make it there, wherever there is.

Despair truly takes over now. I drop my face into my hands, and the tears start. I start crying, thinking about my father, about what he told me. He warned me. He told me not to try, and now there is nothing left for me but to win or to die. And I can't win. I know I can't win because fighting it is pointless. It's too strong.

And that's when I feel it. A strange sensation. A warmth. A warmth I know wait for every year. The light, the sun, God smiling at me. Or, rather, God smiling at my knee. Curiously I stare down at it. This point of light seems so bright, bursting with rays of light through my blurred, teary vision. I wipe my eyes and hold my hand in front of it. It disappears from my knee and I feel the warmth on the palm of my hand. I slowly stand, following the light up to the wall, to the point where my ax shattered against the wall.

There, a small hole, smaller than even the individual hand- and foot-holds I'd used to try to climb it. But it's deeper. Much deeper. I can see, far inside, the world behind the wall. The world my father's books told me about so often. I can see the sun shining behind trees that shine a brighter green than I've ever seen before. And seeing it there, seeing how wonderful and peaceful and beautiful the place I'd been fighting so hard to reach really is, it all starts to make sense.

I pry my eyes away from the hole and look down at the pile of shattered pieces of my ax. In it, I see a single small piece of granite. I reach down and pick it up, holding it in my hands and staring at it for a few moments. Chuckling to myself, I look back up at the face, which is still watching me—waiting, I now realize.

"I understand now." I say to it, speaking quietly, but still knowing he can hear me.

"I know," he says, grinning. I turn the piece of granite in my hand and place it back in the hole. Part of me tries to make me stop, shocked that I could ever block something that is letting me see this world. But I know what I need to do now.

I pick up my pouch and put it over my shoulder. Smiling up at the face, I watch as it pulls back until I can no longer see it past the wall. I put my hand against the wall and close my eyes, remembering everything I saw. Remembering how wonderful the world looked beyond it. And what it all meant.

I open my eyes again and step forward, smiling and passing through the wall as if it weren't there. And as I pass through, I almost feel the wall smiling for me, and preparing for the next weary traveler, looking for a world they know only from books.