Old doll, old wall, new window

“This rug tape won’t come off.”

I stopped what I was doing and gave him the please-for-the-love-of-god-figure-it-out look. “Put some more paint thinner on it,” I offered. “Use a razor blade” and then I mumbled from the other room, “Or just leave it there. Let the next tenant deal with it.”

I rushed about the place, as we were already late in turning the keys in. Violent arm and leg movements hurriedly slammed cupboards, tied trash bags shut, kicked a random screw under those horrible sofas that the furnished rental had come with, wiped the cheap faux wood table down one last time where we’d had countless meals.

This was it. These were the remains of our valuables, the only hints of the five years we’d spent in this flat: a shriveled plant on the windowsill reminding me of my inability to accept responsibility for anything, some old cleaning rags and a bottle of Don Limpio that got the place sparkling to a state that contrasted sharply with how it had looked while we lived there, a couple of old winter coats that didn’t make their way to the suitcases we’d stuffed to breaking point, a half a dozen unidentifiable gadget pieces we weren’t sure if we should throw away or if they would end up being the secret essential pieces we would need to get our vacuum cleaner or coffee pot to work again when they break. Everything went into the last crate.

He took the crate from me and started down the stairs to the car. “Vamos.”

“I’ll be down in a sec, I just have to grab the mop and stuff.”

I just needed one last look. I’m a glutton for this I guess. I suppose I had seen my dad do it on his countless relocations. This was what I did when I moved. I just needed to do some final mind engraving, some psychological mapping, some primitive photography. I took it all in. It was just so. The sofas were over there just like that; we had sat just right there, with the TV over there and right there was the window where he had stood. I can't forget.

I shouldn't.

Those walls. It was the walls that needed to get in one last finger shaking at me and they called me back in for one last talking to, as if I were in my late teens moving out of my parents home for the first time, getting one final scolding on not meeting curfew the night before my move.

You know the kind off walls that are out of style nowadays but that everyone had when we were younger? The ones with the drywall spray texture that created all sorts of camouflaged eyes and pointing fingers, hidden demons and genitals that turn into clowns? Now they angrily pulsed and swirled until my cheeks finally became wet and then they stood still again.

I had snagged on these walls, they had pulled at my weak loose strings and had latched on until I had unraveled completely, until all my innards of spongy stuffing had spilled out before them, right here on these cheap sofas. They had seen that, contrary to popular belief, I was not actually stuffed with diamonds and rose petals. I was stuffed with possibly-toxic synthetic material. They were so judgmental, these walls. They loomed over me and forever scolded me and never ever forgave. I guess these particular walls didn’t have the chance to see much of the good parts of me.

He had picked up my stuffing and pushed it back inside me carefully. He had sewn me back together slowly, trying not to damage my original form along the way, remembering what I had looked like brand new on the store shelf, the smell of sweet plastic, unopened. Once he had put me back together again, he scrubbed my face clean and combed back my stringy hair, and straightened my tattered dress. I wasn't the same, but he wasn't one to throw imperfect things away.



Those walls had been witness to all that goodness too.

He finally placed me in the crate to take down to the car. He was taking me away where the walls could no longer get at me.

I dried my eyes and closed the door for the last time.

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I suppose my new walls are in a state of shock from the Ecru #C2B280 they were so generously coated with, intended to erase their memories of the previous dwellers.

These walls and I are still in the getting-to-know-each-other phase and actually I’m quite agreeable initially. I have the kind of face that looks attractive the first few times you see it. You have to look at me awhile before you begin to notice that one eyebrow is actually higher up than the other, that one eyelid droops down slightly, that my forehead is always either frowning or raising my eyebrows up to exhaustion, that my mouth is unusually small and that my thumbs belong on a member of some mythical diminutive race. I’m actually quite funny at first too. I can be witty. I let out little jabs so one will know what kind of cultured individual they are dealing with. To those walls, I must look like a brand new doll; that sweet smell of strawberry plastic.

But I’m not afraid of them here. They don’t have the hidden genital clowns embedded in them. They are smooth and stainless and they don’t have any opinions yet. And there aren’t as many of them to gang up on me unexpectedly like before.

Besides, all the windows in this place keep the walls in check, and I find windows to be altogether friendlier.

Don’t you?

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Nukke 2 by vaula from flickr.
Doll with cracked head by zen from flickr.
Sister of chucky by peasap from flickr.
Untitled by Luisito

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