The Wall by Darren Sant

Sometimes your best is just not enough. Panic stricken and panting I arrive. There it is, a fucking huge wall. An obstacle blocking my progress. A visible representation of all that I can't achieve. Nervously I look behind me. I lash out at it, kicking and punching but to no avail. It is rock solid. I jump but find it too high. I take a running jump and succeed in bashing my nose upon it. I shout "Fuck it!" in pain and frustration. I sit down and rest my back on it. I take off my shoes and massage my toes; they are sore from kicking the wall. My little toe is black and bruised. I know how it feels. I am a failure. I can't achieve this one thing to get past this fucking wall!

All my life there have been walls. A failed romance, I cut off the pain by building a wall. A hurtful comment and up goes another wall. They vary in size and importance but always there is a wall. An event I had not anticipated, a sense of failure knowing I could have given that little bit more and up goes yet another wall.

I stand up a new resolve takes hold. I will conquer this wall or die trying. My fingers feel for gaps and cracks in the brickwork, anything that will help to support my weight. Miraculously I find them. I begin a slow ascent of the wall. Progress is slow but steady. The ground begins to look smaller. I can see the top! It is within reach. I reach up grabbing the top and my other hand slips from the precarious handhold. I slide painfully back to the bottom. My hands and face are scraped from the friction of the rapid descend. I sigh heavily and rest panting in a heap on the floor.

I start to relax, resigned to my fate. I was not meant to succeed. I was born a loser. Walls are there to stop the likes of me getting above ourselves. I will give up and walk away just as soon as I have the energy. The tiniest stubborn fraction of my mind says no. It niggles away daring me to carry on. Inwardly I argue pointing out that it had no business within my head and perhaps it had better clear off before I imagine it away. The inward battle of logic carries on for some time until it is rudely interrupted by the arrival of a small boy into the alleyway.

He looks around furtively, almost guiltily. When satisfied all is well, having not seen me in the darkness, he reaches behind an industrial size dustbin and pulls out a shiny aluminium stepladder. I watch in disbelief as he approaches the wall. He gently places the ladder against it and slowly climbs up and over the wall, leaving the ladder. I stand up and dust myself off. I climb the ladder and just as I reach the top rung the ladder slips from underneath me and I crash to the ground once more. Time freezes. I seem to be moving at the speed of a snail on dope. I hoist myself up and limp whistling nonchalantly from the alley. Sod it I'm going around!

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