Mercy for the Inanimate

If walls could talk, this wall would be particularly lonely. After years of solitude it's concrete was crumbling, it's weak composition was eternalized by yellow air, and it had been abandonded by time itself. It stood alone being the sole representative of life that once flourished. It was dried from the inescapable heat, and the colors it once brandished had long ago faded. It's structural integrity showed the cracks of time and war and, if it could move, it's slouched posture would surely represent an utter disappointment in it's creators. For the wall had a history, and if a scientist could analyze the wall, countless discoveries would raise far more questions than could ever hoped to be answered. And if a therapist could simply listen to the events that had taken place in view of the wall, the practitioner would be repulsed and mesmerized by tales of violence, war, peace, love, tragedy, hope, and despair.

Fortunately, the wall cannot talk. But if it could, it would want to talk to the last lonely traveler it saw some countless decades ago and ask to be destroyed like everything else. Without great displeasure and through no will of it's own the wall had become somewhat fossilized, immortalized in the great stillness that now plagued the earth. The only thing that changed in it's view was that of night and day, which cycled endlessly and rotated monotonously; any notable difference between the two was stolen with the loss of life and climate, only slightly redeemed by the map of stars that appeared in the night sky. The beauty that once surrounded the wall centuries ago was gone; there were no flowers to bloom during the day, and no critters or streetlamps to wake up the night. There were no more loving hands to clean it's stains and add colorful art. No more snow to cool it's sides or falling leaves to dance in it's view. All was gone. There was simply nothing but a dirty yellow landscape, that matched it's dirty yellow structure, suspended in an endless cycle of starry night and blistering day.

Thankfully, there were no poor souls to listen to the wall. Any listener would grow to know an unshakable depression, utterly devastating radiation poisoning, and probably a slight cough, followed by a painful death. The radiated stories the wall could share would live in infamy like the works of Shakespeare, and if mankind could retain half of it's stories wars would never be fought and bombs would be dismantled in mass. There would be thoughts and lessons in the minds of men that would torture them into being decent. But these stories cannot be told as mankind was far too late to hear them. But luckily the wall has no mind and simply sits surrounded by creation and destruction, unhindered by thoughts or cautionary tales.

If the wall did have a mind, it would fight to retain the memories of the lovely things lost. It would imagine the green grass and beautiful garden that use to fill the small hills that were now just rotten piles of yellow unmoving dirt. It would remember the neighboring building whose red bricks use to light up with the morning sun and the mailman that stopped everyday. The wall would do its best to coverup it's current existence with memories from it's past, but as many memories do, their accuracy and fidelity faded. A wall fated to live such an existence would cycle endlessly through insanity and enlightenment over vast periods of time just as the arms of the Milky Way cycled around the black hole at it's center. Thankfully there is mercy for the inanimate and the wall cannot think.

After many endless centuries, the wall would finally take note of something, if it could think; a loud explosion somewhere far from the walls view. A talking wall might recall the war and the horrible explosions it had endured in it's long and endless life, and assume it was some old bomb detonating, but this sentient wall would be mistaken. The source of the sound was something new. The explosion slightly shook the wall and even made some yellow dirt shift slightly, changing the view for the wall for the first time in countless millennia. And this sound and movement may have given the wall, if it could think, some form of hope. Hope that it could view something new, hope that it could see life again, or hope that it could be destroyed and reincarnated as a door or window in a more fortunate existence. Despite its resurging memories of explosions from the past, any mindful wall would not be able to withstand the thought of hope.

Then, one day many years later, another peculiar thing happened: there was a shadow directly above the wall. Something was interrupting the path of the sunlight that usually assaulted the wall. And if the wall could feel, it would feel something small and gentle touch it's top, then slowly drip down it's side to eventually fall off onto the ground. Then again, and again, and then repeat untill there was a roar of repetition and the wall was drenched. The liquid water would fill its cracks and invigorate its stained colors, cleansing it of dust and yellow dirt. And if it could think, its mind would be broken in joy, trying to recall the name of something that it had long ago forgotten; rain. And if it could talk, the wall would surely say that this is the epitome of happiest and shout at the top of its lungs into the humid air, rejoicing that time had not abandoned it; that there was still hope.

Eventually, after another many millennia, it's view changed and began to fill with vibrant greens, blues, browns, and all of the colors that had once surrounded it an eternity ago. It was slowly covered in fauna. And if the wall could talk it would rejoice and sing to it's new neighbors and name each of them until it could no longer differentiate between the plants that covered it's view. It would cry in happiness and cheerful pain as roots and weather broke down the wall into smaller and smaller pieces and eventually transform it into soil.

Luckily the wall cannot talk, and it didn't have to endure such an infinite existence with a consciousness. It simply sat until it's long awaited destruction as a wall from a forgotten world keeping its stories secret from everything but time.