Memories in Walls

The room was dark. Darker than I had ever had it. At home I still slept with a nightlight but you and Auntie never had a lot of kids over. And I was trying to be brave. It had taken a bit of convincing mum and dad to let me stay the night. The home was new, I had never stayed over before and what would two fifty year olds want to do with a child? They’d caved, because I was excited and you had watched me a number of times when I was a kid. I helped you with your deliveries. You bought me candy.

It was dark in that room. Who would see in the dark room that had no windows. The room that lied in the middle of the hallway. I certainly couldn’t see. And I certainly do not really remember. I only remember the sleepy time tea with the teddy bear on the box, and how dark everything was. Now that I am older, I wonder what the walls would tell me. For I know that humans aren’t the only things that harbor memories or emotions of evil events. And so I imagine a place, where the walls would talk. What they would say to the jury and the judge?

***

Judge Teddy plays with the tiny hammer. His eye glasses perched on his sleepy looking eyes. My eyes hardly leave him. Even when it is the Lawyer dressed in white who calls them to the stand. The east side wall is dressed in red and she sits gently in the leather chair of the witness stand. She could be anyone in a crowd. A blank face blending in with the crowd.

“Please tell us what you know?”

She hesitates, her voice light and low, “It was dark. But I am use to seeing things in the dark. The child was tucked into the oversized bed with two heavy blankets. She was worried about the dark so they told her they’d leave the door open. He didn’t kiss her on the forehead. He kissed her cheek, as close to the mouth as he could get. I do not think she even knew she felt uncomfortable.”

She was already crying. Fat tears leaking down her checks. “Miss Wall?” The Lawyer, handed her a tissue to wipe her eyes with. But before she can continue to speak. I find myself walking away. I am not ready for what the walls have to say.

***

My mind shuts down again. The memories refusing to come to the service. All I really remember is the comment from the next morning.

“You slept like a log kid! You were our cold.” That comment always unsettled me. I had drunk a whole tea pot of that sleepy time tea. I suppose I had slept deeply. I don’t really remember falling asleep. I remember waking up. I felt off. The walls are surrounding me in that room and I feel like I am drowning. It’s a relief to get out of that room. It’s a relief when mum comes to get me and take me home.

“Did you have a good time?” I grin at her and tell her it was fun. I focus on the tea Auntie gave me. But I do not tell her what you were watching downstairs when she sent me down to go hang with you. Even as a child… I know I shouldn’t have seen those naked bodies. I should have been sitting on your lap. I’m pretty sure you were jerking yourself off. But I can’t remember all the details of my time with you. I can’t remember so much but the bits I do remember. I know are wrong. Not in detail or fact. But in life. And someday I wish I could forget.

But it doesn’t really work that way. I can’t erase my mind and I cannot really go back to my childhood and tell them what happened to me. When something could have been done. Now I am ready.

***

I am not a child when I enter that room. I am me as I am now. Older and wiser. The room no longer looks so dark. I ignore the bed in the room. No longer oversized. Instead I go to the far east wall. I know I cannot hear her with my ears. My hand is shaking as I place it softly against the wall. Leaning my head against the cool surface. And it comes rush in.

“Miss Wall?” he encourages her. She sniffles a bit. But she isn’t speaking to the court anymore. She is looking at me. And only me.

“It isn’t your fault.” Her voice is so sure.

“I could have said something.” I fight back. I cannot seem to forgive myself.

“You were eight.” She reminds me. She should know. She was the only one there, and this is her only time to talk to me. “It wasn’t your fault. You were manipulated and you were assaulted. Do you remember crying to me?” she jumps right to the point.

And in a way I can see my older self mirroring my child self. Uncertain tears pooling in my eyes. And I see her from the corner of my eyes. The ghostly child of myself placing her hand under mine. Telling her stories to the walls. Screaming over the years. Different walls, different colors. But all of them listen.

“The stories all walls hear. Stay within the stones and the wood. And they leak out into the world, back into nature.”

And with her words, I understand. She knows all of the things I have said and screamed when no one was watching. She has heard me. She knows me. I feel the tears welling in my eyes as I let the memories I left in the walls come rushing back in. My story has been there all along. Waiting for me to finish it.

“Please tell the jury what you did before you came back from deliveries.” The lawyer is standing before me. I straighten my back. “We would go to the candy store. And I could pick out five things I wanted and we would drive around while I ate them. At first he did for nothing. After he would push. He would ask me for favors and Candy became a reward.” I pause before I tell them what these favors were, explain what I was told to touch or do. Their faces are trying to remain unbiased. But I can see them starting to break.

Judge Teddy has a knowing look on his face. Every wall that comes in to testify as a witness, tell them more. Tell them about the different ways his hands touch my body. What I was watching when he sat me on his lap. They leave out no detail. And I see his face fall. It’s too much evidence. And he is no longer in power over a child.

Judge Teddy stands and asks the jury, how they find the defendant.

“Guilty.”

I feel myself breathe as the judge nods his head. His eyes no longer sleepy but awake and alive as he passes the sentence. I pick out the pink fuzzy handcuffs they slip on his wrists as they lead him away. Knowing he cannot hide. Not when the walls are surround him.

I lift my hand away. Leaving the story with the wall. The ghost of me reaches up to me and I take her hand.

“Do we have to leave it there?” she’s afraid.

I smile down at her,“They won’t forget. And one day. When the walls can talk, they will tell people.”

The ghost hand tightens it grip. I have to trust myself this time. Trust that my words are not the imaginations of child but are the pieces of my story. A story that if the walls could tell you, they weep at the loss of another innocent light.