They built a wall.
It cuts along the entire width of our country. The wall has been created so their citizens can never meet us, and never become truly informed. They built it so it’s invisible on their side. Whenever we demand they tear it down as the first act towards peace, they claim that there is nothing there, that we are lying, that we are crazy.
We are not crazy. Their rulers continue to lie.
In my classroom, as in all our classrooms, there was a picture of the wall,
painted to scale. Its stone bricks piled high, buried into cliffs and mountains to shield it from the sight of the people of the other side. They lined their side of the wall with giant mirrors that reflected the emptiness of the centre and hid the barrier.
By the time I was in middle school the other side had decided to place chameleon dragons to guard the wall. If anyone is stupid or criminal enough to try to climb it, they will be converted into a heap of ashes.
After the announcement of this latest outrage, the pictures in schools and workplaces were taken down for a day to paint the dragons in. This was hard as the dragons can blend in with their surroundings and will not come up in photographs. However, our Wise Fathers knew exactly
what they looked like.
The other side continue to claim that the beasts are myths, are figments of our ‘collective fanatical brains…’ that we are mired in superstition and ignorance; that we should believe the evidence of our eyes not words of prophets, and travel to the border ourselves. Go yes and be engulfed in flames. They want to lead us to our death.
Two summers ago, the evil ones on the other side called on magicians to add curses to secure their barrier.
There is only one safe place to see the wall. It is an aperture chiselled over many years, through a mountain cave, the closest you can dare, just out of range of the curses and the dragons’ breath. When we reach adulthood, each citizen is taken there.
We are all given a moment to look through the hole, one at a time. The words of the guardian directed my gaze.
“Search for the standing rock with a white mark to begin to orientate your view. Follow the line of the cliff.”
I see it. The line continues along the top of the hill and shadows the cliff.
However, I can’t damn up the slow, continuous drip of poison. I am only one person, without any magic of my own. More citizens throw themselves at the wall, like a swimmer does the ocean on a hot day. Some are saved and placed in hospital until the madness leaves them and then begin a period of renewal and penance. Others drown. Their families receive small wooden boxes full of what remains of their loved ones. It is sad, but they chose their own destruction.
I am not speaking from ignorance, as the others often claim. I myself know the pain of betrayal and loss. I myself was sent a box.
My husband first began displaying restlessness. It is a warning signal, but I assumed his decline was to do with the reprimand he and his team got for not achieving their work quotas. There was a need for honest self-criticism. I told him to gather his courage and bear it. Eventually he’d be redeemed, and he’d be able to return to full citizenship and rations. I ask myself now if I purposely didn’t see it. I just couldn’t think him capable of such a heresy.
The other side found my open wound, stuck a pole in, and stirred.
They send me a note, expertly enchanted to resemble his hand. It says he is waiting for me. It urges me to walk to the other side, just walk through the wall, the dragons and the curses. I know this is not my husband. He is in a small box on the window sill.
I can do little I know, but I tried. I manage to report the clandestine postman, and he is caught a few miles from the wall.
After my husband died my inquisitor told me to condemn and forget. I know that they are seeking to help me, but there is a black spot that can’t be removed. I don’t hate my husband. I know I can’t help him anymore. I will help other citizens’ husbands, children and friends.
The boxes are stacking up so much now, that they could create a wall themselves. The other side have increased the ill wind that carries their poisonous magic. It causes our wheat to wither in the fields and eats our food stores. Hunger attacks the people’s faith and optimism, things which have bound our society for generations, and deluded, they run for the wall.
Our fathers trust too much in the goodness of the world and the beauty of our message. Simplicity and unity cannot fight successfully against the darkness that floats over the wall and settles in our hearts and minds.
I have spent hours in self-reflection, kneeling until my knees are rubbed raw on the stone floor, trying to accept and dive into the light.
I can’t help it. I want to fight.
My faithful service to our land means that I have come to know the routes the patrols take, and how to avoid them. I carry my wooden box in both hands, but today my husband is mixed with gunpowder.
I search the horizon. The wall will come into view any moment.