From One Wall to Another

If walls could speak, what would they say?

Would we listen or would we walk away?

If their stories were fantastical and beyond our wildest dreams, would we give them the time to speak their peace?

How souls have leaned up destitute, against a wall, and let out a silent energetic cry of despair from their bodies? Walls, penetrated by the energy of emotion, burst from the bodies of those individuals left within their keeping. These walls hold within themselves real stored memories humanity has yet to tap.

His head hit me squarely.

He had been across the room by his own mother.

He was six months old.

There was a long pause, what felt like a lifetime, then his baby cry left his lungs. Emotions flooded through his baby cry. I can hear and feel any word, thought and emotion within a room. They stay with me forever, like a scar, or worse--a memory. Yes, I'm a wall. I hold every emotion that's ever passed through this room. I can testify in court if you like, but I know you don't want to hear my side of the story. It's too deep for you humans.

He didn't understand what pain was--he was too new to the world--and yet in his cry I could hear him ask what this horrible physical feeling was. I could do nothing but stand there. I wished I was not vertical and covered in drywall. wished I was angled and covered in soft cushions, and could have eased the unjust battering his little body took when at me. stood there, flooded by his , young, intense, emotions now forever embedded into my own memory. was not able to comfort him. was part of the cause of his pain and his new-found emotions. didn't mean to be nor to be. still ache with his feelings forever trapped within me.

Rejection. That is a common emotion we feel. But, from a baby? One so young? innocent? What injustice is this rendered upon a babe thrown from his own mothers arms? His mouth was still full of her warm breast milk, his face still warm from her body heat. Flung across the room, he hit me and dropped to the cold floor with a thud. His gummed mouth, choking on her warm milk, mixed with his own saliva dripped onto the floor.

His pain I could feel.

body was wracked with explainable physical pain. baby heart throbbed with a new emotion one so young ought not to experience--rejection. Oh what I would do to take it from him! I throbbed with emotion for him. One so young ought not to know pain, that is physical pain, nor the far deeper one--emotional pain. What a cruel place this world can be and how cruel humans can be to each other!

She was having another one of her fits. Her mental breakdowns. She was in the middle of a heated discussion with one of her friends. She was not in her right mind. was cruel, but should she be blamed? had nothing else within reach to throw in her rage. didn't even realize what she had done till her friend slapped her in the face . I'm not standing up for her, I'm stating the emotional facts as they were projected on me. She was angry for different reasons, and at her friend. She had lost check with reality and had lost all emotions of affection and love that mothers have for their children. absent even in the moments before she threw the baby against me. I know. I felt it all--including the horror of her friend as the baby flew through the air. Then the friends anger, then her lump of fear for his life.

The mother sat dazed from the slaps her friend rendered her, as her friend ran to his aid. His little body limp, she placed on her chest trying to comfort him. Tears slipped from her eyes. She choked with emotion. I could feel her rage toward her friend, and I could feel her compassion towards him and fear for his life.

She screamed at her friend her unworthiness to be a mother tears pouring from her eyes, profanities from her mouth. She spewed an emotional shock wave of disgust, spite, shock, fear, and her own insecurities of her wombs barrenness and the longing for her own child, toward the woman who would do such a thing to her own child.

Oh yes. I feel all those emotions. Even the tiniest ones like whispers in the wind that are almost imperceptible except for the movement of a single leaf.

The mother screamed profanities back at her friend for slapping her. She then at her friend, clawing at her to take her baby back in her arms. Her breast hung out from her shirt where the baby boy had nursed from moments before. Her mental state caused her emotions to flare like oil on a fire, high in heat leaping and changing like a flame out of control.

His pitiful muffled cries were not shielded from me though his face was pressed into her neck as she thrashed about, trying to keep him from his own mother. I quaked under his intense emotions and screams. The feeling of arms around him that ought to feel safe, that had in the past, now felt like an uncomfortable shield from death. Such heated words with intense emotions he had not yet experienced, now pierced his body and mind.

He could not rationalize nor understand them. He could feel and experience them. They, mixed with his own pain, rejection, and the onslaught of emotions from the words of both women was overwhelming. He was subjected to a flood of hate and malice from one woman to the other, frightening him more, intensifying his screams.

Holding him she fought her way to the phone that hung a feet from where his head struck. 9-1-1. She kicked her friend to keep her away from her own baby. He could feel compassion from the woman holding him, and yet he could not rationalize it as a good emotion. He did not know her, and her compassion lost its on him as she thrashed him about avoiding his mother, all the while holding him so tight that he struggled for air. All he wanted was his mothers touch, her love. Her kiss on his face. To fall asleep nestled in her breasts.

I could feel the mothers emotions too. They were muddled by her irrational thoughts. She wanted her baby, she was angry at her friend for slapping her, and now, her mother bear instinct kicked in since shewouldn't give her child back to her. The kicking, screaming, and profanities, continued until an emotionless knock at the door beckoned the women to calm themselves.

Blue and red flashing lights shined through the front door onto me. The small room, now flooded with officers, paramedics and social workers was bustling with activity. people with cool emotions handling the emotional bomb I had taken. I didn't ask for a reprieve. Nor did I want to stop feeling this little boys changing emotions. He was passed from person to person. He was . His diaper was dirty. He was hungry. All he wanted his mother. His cries slowed to small whimpers interjected with deep fast quick breaths through his runny nose. He calmed as the emotional atmosphere calmed. I could feel his every wave of emotion that rippled across the room to me. He wasn't old enough to understand what was going on around him. Such an unfair start to life.

She sat on the floor begging to hold her baby an officer on either side of her. Her emotions I felt. She was remorseful, she wanted to hold him and love him again. She was not allowed this luxury. The officers that held her at bay, later took her kicking and screaming into one of their vehicles to a mental hospital. Her screams of desperation, trying to reach her son once again, penetrated me. "My baby, my baby!" she cried. His cries for the gentle touch he had once known from her, mingled with her desperation to reach him, I felt, would crumble me.

Now, he was by someone he didn't know, ripped from the breasts he once knew comfort, love, and safety. He now knew discomfort, and hate. This new feeling of rejection would take years to set in and realize, and this other new complex feeling, compassion, he would experience with mixed feelings. Such one so young ought not to experience or feel.

The baby boy left with the social workers and never returned. His mother returned weeks later. She was still not right in her head. Perhaps this was physical justice and safety, served by the humans. They never seem to take into account the emotions. They have so of them, they don't know how to train them or use them properly. push them down and away and don't know how to deal with them or express them in the wrong way and are punished for their lack of control. Who am I to say though? I'm the wall in the room who saw and felt it all.

From one Wall to another; find and tell the people whose lives have been most affected by what you know so that they may experience emotional wholeness in their lives.

If I could see him now, I would hold him the way his mother should have. I'm sure he's a man now. That was decades ago. I'm sure the court documents he has in his possession, tell the cold, hard, emotionless facts of his earliest days on this earth. I still feel for that baby boy. His emotions and his mothers will forever be imprinted within me.

J. C. Miller

Thank-you dear wall for telling me your version of the story. I'm forever indebted to you.