The walls in Weaver Hall were cracked and peeling. What was once a fresh and frankly bizarre choice of a coat of coral paint was now itself coated in dirt and layers of scuff that must have taken years to accumulate.
You couldn’t fault the building for any of this, though. Being the oldest-built structure in a university erected nearly a century ago was destined to be left with a few scars. People like to say that college chewed them up and spit them out, but I think Weaver Hall has had its fair share of getting spit on.
I’d spent weeks sitting in this particular hallway for over half of the semester now, sitting on the equally scuffed floors with nothing to do but sit and stare ahead at the ruined walls while I waited for my class to begin. I’d been sitting in this same exact spot since the semester began, and it was only today that I noticed the massive splotch of missing paint at the top of the wall I was perched in front of. The coral paint was completely stripped away, either chipped down to the very bareness of the wall or like they missed a spot a hundred years ago, or maybe the twenty years since they remodeled, and decided to leave one big ugly mess behind right in the line of sight. Well, only if you angled your head up.
I couldn’t tell you why it caught my eye. It was persistent. It was irritating. An eye-sore. And I couldn’t stop looking at it. The first thought I ever had about the empty splotch was coming into class the next day with a paint bucket and a brush. Pay no mind, fellow classmates; I’ve gone insane and I need this empty paint splotch re-splotched immediately before my own brain goes splotch. Maybe it’ll be the same salmon color, too.
I left the wall alone. For a while. I would turn my head in every direction but forward when I came to class, rushing into the room as fast as possible every time to avoid the hideous, ruinous wall that seemed to mock me, every so slightly. Think you can fix me? Go get that paintbrush, girly. See if you can fix me, girly. Cracks don’t go away with a little bit of paint, girly. Try and put a bullet hole over a Band-Aid, girly. See how well it works for you.
Don’t call me girly.
Pick up a paintbrush, doll.
I’m not your doll, either. Stupid fucking wall.
You’re making me blush, girly. You might just patch up my little imperfection yet.
I suppose it was going to come to this eventually, almost inevitably. I found myself standing in front of the wall one morning, head turned upwards and cocked to the side as I glared at it. Like I expected it to reach out and grab me if I looked away, even for a second.
I grabbed a chair standing nearby and hauled it over to the offending wall, hoisting myself up to make myself eye level with the thing. It was much more intimidating up close; gaping like a big open mouth. I wouldn’t have been surprised if it grew teeth, too. I got as close as I dared to the splotch, straining my eyes to see what was beneath the hack paint job.
And it looked like stuffing. Like the other side of the wall held a massive rubber room, like the one for those crazies.
Wouldn’t that be something, girly? A whole room for you and me.
I shook my head from side to side violently, as if to clear such a foolish thought from my head. Of course it wasn’t stuffing, idiot.
Come even closer and find out, girly. You might like what you find.
The thought clanged through me like a ricochet, and my feet lost their footing on the metal chair as I flew backwards, sprawling out across the linoleum floor. I thrusted my hands out palm-first behind me to brace my fall.
I blinked up slowly at the wall, listening. The voice had been burly and deep, not human enough to come from a person. It seemed to have come from inside my own head.
The hairs on the back of my neck raised, I lifted myself up from the floor. I kicked the chair out of the way, not keen on standing as close to the wall again so soon.
Why so shy, girly? Not so tough anymore? I thought you were going to fix me up.
I hadn’t had enough time to process this new thought that seemed to rip through my head before it happened. One second, I was staring at the wall and feeling it glare at me, feeling it sneer at me with its big ugly missing paint splotch of a mouth, and the next I felt cold all around me. I hadn’t managed more than a gasp before I felt the wall swallow me up, easily enough and with no effort at all as if it did this all the time.
All around me was cold and dark and I blinked a few times, hoping my eyes would adjust to the dark that seemed to surround me on all sides. They didn’t.
Feeling the first wave of panic simmering, I thrust my hands out in front of me as I felt around blindly for something, anything to anchor myself to and catch my rapidly increasing breath.
What’s the matter? Didn’t think you would have to be so hands on?
The voice seemed louder now, no longer coming from directly in front of me, as the wall had been. It came from every which direction I turned, sightlessly thrashing my head back and forth. I couldn’t see anything; I couldn’t feel anything except my growing terror and the cold that swept itself around me and licked down my spine.
The panic was in full swing now, wrapping itself around my body and rendering me helpless. I was frozen in place, trying to get my legs to move, to just take one step forward, just please please move, get me out of here, move, just MOVE-
The laughter shook me out of my own thoughts.
It was quiet at first, growing into a loud and booming sound that set my teeth on edge. I swore as I felt my head vibrate with the sound of it, cold and ugly and all-consuming. I was suddenly dizzy, my thoughts scattering in every direction, to every desolate corner of my brain and abandoning me. There was nothing in me but sheer fear and the slow rise of bile steadily growing in my throat.
The laughter ended sharply, replaced by that deep and callous voice. It rang out from everywhere, the loudest it had ever been and I clenched my teeth as the sound reverberated through my skull.
WHAT’S THE MATTER GIRLY, WHAT’S THE MATTER WHAT’S THE MATTER-
The voice chanted at me repeatedly, not a question to be answered but a taunt, like I could almost see this faceless evil and its mirthlessly smiling mouth, picturing teeth that were sharp and jagged and ready to take a bite out of me yet.
COME AND FIND ME, GIRLY. COME AND FIX ME LIKE YOU WANTED, COME PATCH ME UP. I PROMISE I DON’T BITE, NOT UNLESS YOU ASK.
I felt my feet give out beneath me. The cold was biting and I was numb, and I didn’t feel any pain as I slammed to the floor. I didn’t feel it when my head collided with the floor, didn’t notice through the enveloping dark as my vision blurred at the impact. All I knew was the black nothingness all around me and the cold and the cruel ugly voice that laughed at me as the blistering cold bit into me one last time and my eyes slipped shut.
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Inside of the wall is cold and grey and dark and I don’t like it. I couldn’t see the dark, how does anyone see the dark, but I could feel it – running its cold hands down my spine and whispering in my ear, almost purring but not really, not quite as affectionate. The wall was cold and angry with me and for a moment I felt scared, because what had I done to make it so angry, so cold, so goddamn fucking cold that I couldn’t even bare to feel it any longer. I had to make a run for it.
Where is there to go in the dark except forward? Where is there to look but straight ahead? I wouldn’t dare look behind me, because who knows what would be lurking there – monsters or demons or really scary old people with missing teeth and maybe missing limbs because this is my imagination after all, and it’s as dark and scary a place as the wall and I don’t know where I’m going still, putting one foot in front of the other except I don’t seem to be going anywhere, I’m standing still but already miles away, oh god I still haven’t moved, I’ve got to reel it back in now but the wall is taunting me again, it’s calling my name and calling me girly and it knows just how fucking much I hate being called girly and suddenly the wall is quiet.
A quiet knock comes from somewhere to my left, or maybe my right, but it comes all the same and it’s very soft and inviting and I want to tell whoever is on the side of that door to come in because I’m afraid and it’s dark and maybe there’s light on the other side, maybe my head will feel lighter, maybe there won’t be so much traffic inside my brain and then I remember that the wall shows no kindness and so I do not invite the knocker in. They knock again, and it’s still soft and I can feel my restraint slipping away because maybe they’re nice, on the other side. Maybe it’s my mother and she’s happy to see me, maybe it’s my father and he’ll rock me to sleep like he used to, maybe they won’t send me away again, maybe it’s somebody or anybody that can turn the lights on, please oh my god turn the fucking lights on –
The knocking continues but the knocking is not quiet anymore, the knocking is not soft but instead it is loud, and angry, and they’re not knocking, they’re banging on the door now and they’re yelling but I can’t hear them and then the wall is laughing at me again, calling me girly with an ugly sneer on its face and it doesn’t have a face but I can picture it all the same, centuries old and evil because only evil like this can be so old and so unkind and the knocking is kicking my brain around in my head now, I can’t seem to get away from it and I’m screaming come in! and okay PLEASE COME IN I can’t take this anymore and the knocking continues anyway because the wall hasn’t listened to my pleas before and it won’t listen to me again.
The knocking goes away like it was never really there and I’m left in the dark again, leaning against the wall or maybe I’m sitting in the middle of the floor and oh my god how big is this wall that I fit inside it? Am I still just inside the wall? Or has it taken me away again, thrown me inside and ignored me as I begged to be let out, please let me out, I can’t be in here anymore, I hate the dark, you know I hate the dark and I swear I’ll let you call me girly if you just let me out, turn the lights on, just do SOMETHING you know I hate the dark–
The lights turn on again like they have been on the whole time, shining down on me with their ugly yellow light, even though I’m freezing in this jacket (have I been wearing this the whole time?) but it has nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with the wall, the fucking goddamn evil wall, let me at that fucking wall and I’ll teach it a thing or two about –
“Ready for your pill, girly?”
The voice pulls me out of my thoughts with a screeching halt. I turn my neck so fast that it gives me whiplash and has me wincing for a second before I look up at the strange man in the room. The man in the room is older but not old, taller than the doorway he’s standing in and ugly, so ugly with that crude and ugly smile on his face, let me wipe that fucking smirk off your face you evil old bastard, let me get a few good shots in before the wall comes to take me away again, let me –
I launch myself at the man and start clawing his eyes out with my nails that aren’t that sharp but will definitely make do, except I’m still on the floor in the middle of the room and my hands are in the pockets of this jacket that I don’t remember wearing and I’m sitting crisscross applesauce because I don’t really have a choice, the leather restraints around my ankles make movement a bit more difficult that you would think and I let my eyes zero in on them for a split second before I’m looking at the tall ugly man in the room (MY room get the fuck out of my room) and waiting to see what he does.
“Are you ready for your pill, girly?” He repeats himself and it makes me want to drive my shackled foot into his stomach.
I open my mouth to speak but I have to test my voice because it’s been inactive for what feels like hours, but wasn’t I just screaming at the top of my lungs, wasn’t I begging and pleading, wasn’t I in danger, wasn’t someone knocking, WASN’T I STUCK INSIDE THE WALL, WASN’T IT DARK AND SCARY AND COLD OH GOD IT WAS SO COLD HOW COULD IT HAVE GOTTEN SO COLD-
“I told you not to call me girly,” Is what I say to the giant staring down at me, my voice raw and ruined and so pathetically small and exhausted and every single thing that it shouldn’t be and I am not afraid damnit, of you or that stupid ugly smirk or that cold wall or that knocking at my door oh god who was knocking at my goddamn door and he moves further into the room and closer to me as if I haven’t spoken, like he can’t feel the anger seeping off of me in waves right now.
“And I told you to stop trying to bust up the walls in here but we can’t get everything we want now, can we, girly?”
I flinch at this turn in conversation because the man knows about the wall, he said walls, why are we talking about walls that have nothing to do with the black abyss masquerading as a hallway wall in a small liberal arts college and what the fuck is he saying to me now?
“I’m not leaving until you take your pill, little miss. No fake swallowing or cheek-stashing, you know the drill. You’ve been here long enough, ain’t that right, girly?” He grins to himself as he watches the hated word wash over me, grins big and wide and ugly and I can see what years of chain-smoking have done with the craters in his mouth and suddenly this man is scarier than anything that the wall could ever dream up because at least the wall was honest in its unkindness, at least it didn’t smile at me and dream of taking a bite out of me the moment my back was turned and as fucked as this big ugly man’s teeth were, I knew he’d try to take a bite out of me yet.
But I was at college, I want to say. I was at college and I was looking at this botched-paint job of a wall and then the wall opened up and swallowed me whole and I barely made it out alive. The wall was old and malevolent and evil and all the other evil-sounding adjectives that I can think of because I was at college, damnit, and then the wall swallowed me whole.
I don’t say any of this. I’m not sure I could get the words out. I’m not sure the wall would let me. Taking my silence as his cue to stalk towards me, he closes the remaining distance between us and looms over me, his ugly cruel eyes boring into the back of my head as I sit there with my own head hanging low, staring at his ugly brown shoes and I’m still staring at his shoes when he takes one of his cold and clammy hands and grips my chin in it, jerking my head up to face him and holding me by the jaw. I’m still looking at his shoes.
“Open your mouth and take your fucking pill, girly. You don’t want us to have to strap you down fully, now do you? If you’re good, maybe we’ll take that jacket off of ya. What do you say?” He wrestles my mouth open with one hand, not the one holding me, and drops in the same orange pill that they feed me every day. He watches as I gag, swallowing it dry because it was already halfway down my throat and I’ve never driven a car, but I can imagine that that kind of U-turn is nearly impossible and now I’m having a coughing fit, cursing at him in my head for not even giving me a glass of water, the bastard, and he just stands there and watches me, making sure I don’t do something stupid like hurl it back up the second his back is turned, although I can’t imagine he would have any problem delivering whatever kind of punishment that’ll warrant. He’ll do it happily, accompanied by that same cruel and ugly grin.
I don’t spit it back up, because there’s no point. These pills have never done much for me anyway. They claim that they calm me down, that they make me lucid with their silly little pills but they’re wrong, because I can’t remember a time that I wasn’t lucid. I’m lucid right now, aren’t I? Aren’t I? You think so, don’t you? No, you don’t think I’m crazy. You don’t. You’ve seen the wall, you believe me. You believe me, don’t you?
It doesn’t matter now, anyway. My head feels lighter. Did I tell you my head felt heavy? I must have. It doesn’t feel as foggy. Everything was so foggy. I’ve got to rest my head, just for a moment. Just for a little while.
The man heads to slip out of my room as I begin my descend into unconsciousness, the same smile stretched across his face like it never left. I think I’ve seen that smile before. Maybe in a nightmare. Have I been having nightmares again?
He doesn’t look at me again as he walks through the door, tossing out over his shoulder, “Pleasure doing business with you, girly. Here at Weaver Psychiatric Institution, we aim to please.”
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The buzzing of the fluorescent lights wakes me up. I didn’t turn them off before I fell asleep. The restraints on my feet have been left unbuckled (because you were good and took your pill, girly) and I roll my ankles, sorting out any kinks or tightness I might have from sleeping so long. I must have been out for hours, I think to myself. I could have sworn I had the strangest dream.
I settle back against my pillows and stare up at the ceiling. I start to doze off again, the promise of another deep sleep lulling me away, when it catches my eye. My lingering gaze stops short, staring right at it. And it’s the strangest thing, I can’t believe I’ve never noticed it. I sit up until I’m level with it, watching it as it watches me.
The paint on the wall is starting to crack.