A.J. Walker

writerer

These Walls

These Walls

I built these walls for a purpose. Using big thick slabs. Granite. Limestone. An impenetrable fortress. You are not getting past these walls. Through to me. I’ll bite your head off. If you so much as try.
You say you’ve heard of someone finding a way in. There is no secret passage. No hidden door. The walls are on deep foundations, towering to the sky. You are not getting in. You say you’ve met me truly once. A beautiful aberration. A delicate wonderful butterfly, or was it a flower?
It’s a lie, that never happened. The walls are impenetrable. I’ve told you. They’ve stood always.
Step away. Walk on past there’s nothing to see. I’ll take the drink. ‘Cheers!’ As much as you’ll get from me.
You’re a nice guy. Gentle. Intelligent. Good looking. In another world I’d give you every chance. I may even have chased you myself. Here and now though these walls are protecting you as much as me. Probably more. There are other people here. People you know. Fuck off and spoil their night.
There’s no way in. If these walls ever fell the world would regret it. That would be you first, dickhead! Another drink. ‘Bottoms up!’ ‘Haven’t seen you about for an age,’ he said, ‘Where you been?’ Think I answered; his face suggested I did. Something innocuous. I don’t do conversation. You are not going to find me. These walls, you know.
I built them for a purpose. There was indeed a time when people could get in. There were doors. Locked, but there was a key. There could be a way through. But I became more damaged. A quantum menace. Simultaneously a rose frozen with dry ice and a humungous bomb on a hair trigger. Dry ice. Rocks. Whisky. ‘Salud!’
You can do better, what can I give you, but headaches and heartaches? If there was a door. Just say, there was. If there was a door, what would happen? You’d smash the rose into a million pieces with a simple touch. That could happen. Or I could explode and scatter you and me throughout the hemisphere.
Either way I’d be broken. I’m damaged goods. I’ve become a bio-hazard. A chemical hazard. Bubbling away on the edge of oblivion.
I don’t do people. Not any more. The only damage I’m going to suffer will be self inflicted. ‘Cheers big ears!’
There is no way in. The walls are solid to the sky. On deep deep foundations. You were feeling for the door. A secret way in. Did you find it? No. It’s not there.
You’re safe. I’m safe. The walls have held.
Now fuck off.


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(444 words) MWBB Week 24 - Prompt: “You Know I’m No Good’ by Amy Winehouse