I had always wondered what was on the other side of that wall. There had been so many discussions about it. So many arguments. So many… fights. There was only one thing I could think of. Only one thing that could possibly be over there. But that one thing was an impossibility. An impossibility to say the least.

In the early morning hours she took to taking sneaking walks along the wall. If she got far enough before morning broke, she could go on for hours without anyone noticing. There were no guards here, save one; the wall itself. This guard was made of red brick and mesh. The stillness of its attention was a symbol of its immenseness.

What was it that she was looking for in this wall? The thing really is just an object. Walls were meant to be climbed? Not in this day. Too much hate out there. “Out there,” is the phrase that stuck with her. What was out there? Too much hate. That’s the answer she always came to. The wall had its purpose, she supposed. Was it to be jumped? Looked over? Torn down? Built up?

She did not build this wall or have anything to do with its construction. That was done by the townspeople over twelve hundred years ago. These days, for her, it was something to be explored. Investigated. Learned. How does it work? How could she manipulate it? What purpose would it serve her in the end? What was she to do?

Upon visiting the wall on a regular schedule, she began to think of it as a symbol of what she wanted. She knew her town had grown too small and was only attracting the worst kind of people these days. What she wanted was a perfect life. Doesn’t anyone? She knew that it wouldn’t come, but she reasoned that she must at least move in that direction. A direction, not of change so much as growth. New surroundings would not help her, but they would…

Sometimes when I would wake up and peek out my window, I would see the wall. And lightly covered with a sprinkling of snow or frost. These were the best moments because I knew I could go and sneak along the wall. Eventually I would realize that everyone was gone that I knew. The town was empty these days, not of the worst kind of people, but of those that I had known as a little girl. The wall was my only remberance of them…

The snow afforded her an ease of escape. When the townspeople would stay in and not look to the wall, which they rarely did anyways. On those days she could stroll for long distances along the wall. It would stretch out beyond the town and into the prairie. There it would just continue.

Who had built this wall? Why had they built it? What did they want to keep out? Or in? These are questions she pondered. The more she asked these questions the more she realized that there were no actual answers. If she had asked them of the townspeople they would either shrug in apathy or answer a more pressing, but unasked question. They had no idea, she thought.

The wall stretched on as far as she could see. Why look at it anymore then? She stopped searching along the wall, but her curiosity did not wane. She had begun to sit and watch the wall. It took her about half an hour to walk from her home to the wall. There she would sit and stare and drill holes in it. Her bits never really yielded anything but feelings of hopelessness. She wanted to believe what her people had always told her. That she was not trapped. That she was in fact already on the other side of the wall and that there is here. This, of course, was the case, but just as sure she could not, or would not expose herself to that thought. At least not seriously. After all, everyone had already left. That is except the worst kind of people.

I would go to the wall. I had stopped thinking about it really. I had stopped trying to figure it out. I just had this need to go to the wall. I went there and I would think about leaving. The wall had become my thoughts about leaving. After months of doing this it became apparent to me that the wall was really my own reflection and that I saw in it, in the reflection, that I had to go.

Walls though, do not let you go. They stop you from going. This was the problem. And she would drill her thoughts into the wall in hopes of letting through the water or maybe some kind of answer. So she sat there and looked at the wall.

Years later the wall is still there. To this day it stands. I can figure that it has been thought about so intensely that many have figured it out. But of course it is a problem that I still have difficulty with. Like her, I too did leave.

Recently I accompanied her to the café and we had a long conversation about the wall, like in past times. What I found strange about our conversation was that she said she now knew what was on the other side. She had seen it. This I knew to be false. But then she told me that these days she wanted to return to the town. That the people were right. She was already on the other side.