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Ham

The Wall

By J.A.LPublished 3 years ago 4 min read
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The heat produced from the sliver of sun that found its way through the slots of uneven blinds was a startling contrast to the cold that rose from the hard dirt floor. Her eyes opened. Ham had once again fallen asleep a few steps short of her bed.

She always felt a bit vulnerable lying on the strange sacrificial-like pedestal. The ground was better. It was stable. And in her home, there was no layer to divide her from the earth. Ham had built her house without any flooring. The crumbling, rocky floor was far better for her.

Ham’s home was congested with plants. Some were potted. Some grew out of the ground. Her roof was made of glass that peeked in the middle like a greenhouse. And on the far end of the room, across from the entrance, was a white wall that was 3/4ths colored in with homemade graphite pencils. On the floor next to her bed laid a tin of coffee grounds, one spoon, one porcelain plate, one small cooking pot, one bowl, and several graphite sticks wrapped in twine. Every morning, Ham would get up, shuffle to her yard and pick two eggs from one of her three hens. She would make a cup of coffee and poach her food with the left-over water, scarf everything down, walk over to the graphite wall, and color for four hours or until the uncontrollable urge to fill in the white space went away.

Today felt a bit different. Drawn by an inexplicable source, Ham walked outside and away from her home to the café on the corner.

Theastai rocked the wobbly linoleum table with his foot. The defect bothered him terribly, but he was trying to learn to accept imperfections. Theastai had been sitting at his favorite café since it opened that morning. He was usually the first and last customer, consuming time with innocuous tasks that kept him safely unable to be anything but impeccable. On this day, he had built a castle out of sugar cubes for an ant that came to beg for croissant crumbs. When he realized the castle was actually a prison, he knocked it down and swept the ant away.

“Why is your table covered in sugar?” Theastai looked up at the sooty creature.

“I was frustrated,” he replied.

“By?”

“I seem to always end up being unkind.”

“I’ve never had sweets.” Theastai tosses Ham a cube.

There was no urge to draw, no urge to visit her hens, no urge to drink coffee. Instead, her feet bring her home and in the dirt, Ham falls asleep until the night crawls in. When the darkness irritates her enough, Ham gets up, picks up a pencil and draws a square in the remaining white wall space. Delighted by the symmetry, Ham walks over to the square and squeezes her way through. She falls into an alabaster room. In the center of the clean, white room is a chair. Sitting in the chair is Theastai--pure and absolute.

Propelled by her excitement, Ham runs to him and embraces his head. He kisses her shoulder and they lay together on the floor. Time passes. They hold each other, smiling and warm. When they are hungry, Ham scrapes at the walls. With the flakes, she forms an egg. When they are bored, Ham tells stories and sings songs. Theastai writes poetry and pretends they live by the ocean. Ham can smell the salt water. The humidity rests on Theastai's skin. They sleep in each other’s arms for more hours than they are awake. They live like this for some time. Days move and move. The room starts to get noticeably dirty. To resolve this, Ham takes off her dress and uses it to scrub away the darkness, but the hard work only turns her shirt black. Her eyesight becomes fuzzy and mind a bit numb. Ham releases her from a hug; the type of hug that signifies it’ll be the last time they meet. It makes her sad and out of desperation she cries out that she loves him. Theastai whispers it back. When the room starts to turn unbearably gray, Theastai wanders away, leaving Ham alone in a black room. The following week, Ham sleeps and hardly eats as she melts into despondency. She is met with an impassable feeling of being just another speck.

Burdened by her loneliness, Ham compulsively picks at the darkness. She peels it away and folds it into a black notebook. In it she writes her story of love lost and recovers herself in the process; Writhing in pain, inspired by love—Theastai has become a muse in the most exhausting way possible, but now Ham has had more life than her dirt floor and graphite wall could ever provide.

She goes to her square, holding her notebook tightly in her arms, and climbs back through. Now she had a story. Now she could feel like an artist.

couples travel
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About the Creator

J.A.L

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