Dedicated to Ettie

He was an old wall. He was one of the four walls that held
the roof of the warehouse above the ground. He was so old
that his layers of wall tappets were peeled and its color
had faded and turned brown like the pages of an old book. He
was made of cement, yet he was so old that he was soft
enough to be cracked by an axe. And that, my friends, was
his curse.

Joel was a good man, in his nature. He was the kind of guy
who'd never hurt a butterfly. Bad example. You'd have to be
one hell of a maniac to have hurt a butterfly. So scrap
that. Joel was the kind of guy who wouldn't hurt a bug if it
was standing on his nose in the morning and scarring the
shit out of him. Joel was the kind of guy who wouldn't hurt
a snake if it were ready to bite him. Hell, he was the kind
of guy who'd weep for the poor bee if it had died after
stinging him.

The thing with poor Joel was that he had had a lot of rage.
Poor Joel had so much rage inside him that when he would get
mad, his belly felt like a cache of weapons that went out of
control. His stomach was a huge tank that bombed his
internal organs time after time, almost causing his body to
explode in the fire of his emotions.

When Joel was mad he was mad at everything. He was mad at
the sun being in the sky, he was mad at the sky being blue,
he was mad at flowers, at clouds, at shoes. He was mad at
the mirror, at his reflection in the mirror, at himself. He
was mad at others. He was mad at the chairs, at the sofa, at
the broken television set, at the printer, at the computer,
at the pen. He was mad at his bed, at his job at his family.
He was mad at his childhood, at the earth, at the future.
But he couldn't take it out on them. Not that he wasn't a
powerful man, as a matter of fact he was built quite a
bully. But he got good education from the sisters in Sunday
school. "No matter how mad you get", the used to say to him,
"Don't ever take it out on others".

But it was no good trying to keep it inside. Like puke when
you feel sick - some things have got to get out. If he
wasn't going to take it out on others - he was going to take
it out on himself. But it was painful. He would end up
killing himself if he was to really take it out on him. He
had to kill that rage. He had to kill that rage before it
kills him.

As he grew up, he realized that certain solid items weren't
included in the definition of "others". He then kicked
chairs and desks, taking it out on them. However, these
items belonged to people. After being beaten for breaking a
full bottle of Jack Daniel's in a local pub (and being
charged for the whole bottle), he realized that hurting
people's items is pretty much like hurting them. He also
discovered that everything in this world belonged to people.
And the things that didn't - they belonged to God.

Hope came from an unexpected channel: As Joel grew older and
got married, he had to build himself his own house. However,
most of the items inside that house belonged to Edelle, his
wife who decorated the place. That way he couldn't actually
destroy what he had built. But in the back yard of the
house, there was a warehouse. It was old and unused. It was
so old that it had belonged to no one. Or so Joel thought.

In hard times, Joel would go to the warehouse. His rage
would drive him crazy. It was only in the warehouse where he
could take it out on something that he really gained peace.
He would come with a belly full of razor blades. He would
bang his head against the wall. That didn't hurt too bad.
But to Joel it did. Joel moved to slapping the wall. That
was rather annoying. It was also unpleasant for Joel. So he
kicked the wall. Kicking was supposed to be a great pleasure
for the angry man. What a great pleasure is putting all your
energy into one move and then seeing a ball or an object
flying up in the air and far far away! As far as it flew is
as mad as he was, and as far as the anger flew away.

Kicking the wall, however, was somewhat of a challenge. The
thing about a wall is that it it's stable. No matter how
hard you kick it, it doesn't fly away. A soft wall like he
was, was moving quite a bit when kicked, but it never flew.
For Joel's leg, that stability was a source for frustration
instead of relief. Thus - the more he kicked, the angrier he
got. That was no way of getting things under control. He had
to restore his peace of mind.

Joel began kicking and breaking objects in the warehouse.
There was a broom that had the hair of the old aged lady.
Joel tore its hair off and used the stick against the wall
till it broke. He did the same to the rake and the hoe. It
was then when he found an axe. Now that axe was a real
something. Joel never held no axe before. An axe was a thing
he read about, heard about, saw in the movies. But he
himself never had no axe. He didn't even know anyone who had
an axe. You can imagine the thrill that it was for him to
grab that big old axe and hit against the wall.

The first time he hit the wall, the axe left a wide mark on
it. The second time it got stuck. It took Joel a couple of
times to master the action of sticking the axe into the wall
then releasing it. As painful as it was for the wall, he
took it like a wall. As for Joel - he felt like he'd managed
to kill the rage.

It was only this one wall that Joel hit with the axe. Was it
the direction? Was because he was exposed with no objects
leaning against it to distract the mind? Was it because he
was the farthest wall from the door? Or was it simply his
bad luck? Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, maybe it was all
together. To the wall it didn't matter too much. All he
could do is to stand there and take the blows while the
other three walls that kept the ceiling of the warehouse
above the ground (including the wooden door) watched those
rage attacks happen time after time, bruising the poor wall
over and over again. There was nothing they cold do about
it. They were like the wall, just standing there. They
couldn't move, old as they were, they couldn't make a sound.


After he was done, he left the axe hidden in the corner of
the warehouse, got back home, and kissed his wife. They
would have a lovely evening together. He'd eat the meals
she'd cook. They'd have a nice conversation, they'd fuck.
Then they'd go to sleep, peaceful. He felt like he killed
the rage.

Joel was quite pleased with this soon to be no longer new
arrangement. He would of course, be more than glad to give
it up for peace of mind. But given the fact that rage
attacks were there for to stay, he could at least find a
little comfort in his axe.

The specific rage attack that killed the water wasn't
exceptional. Joel was no more harsh or gentle on the axe
than any other time. But boy, that wall was far too wounded
to take another blow. That's just the way items are in this
world. They get old, they take blow after blow till one day
they just break down. Like an old transistor radio that went
out of order.

On that specific day, Joel left his home with a belly full
of razor blades. Razor blades of anger. He got inside the
warehouse and locked the door after him. It was dark inside,
but he didn't have to turn on the light. Rays of sunlight
penetrated the dark space through the cracks of the bruised
wall. Joel grabbed his axe with both hands. He let out a
roar while lifting the axe up and hit the wall.

"Crack!" Came the reply of the wounded wall. "Crack!" came
another hit, "Crack!" and another, and another. He couldn't
take it anymore.

For the last fifty two years, this wall had been standing.
He had known blows, he had known kicks. He'd been through
stormy weathers and dry summer seasons. That night he died.


It was forth blow, maybe the fifth, Joel wasn't certain. At
any other time he would still be mad up until maybe the
tenth or the fifteenth blow (or course, he never counted
them). But that night, as he watched is favorite wall
collapse it was like all the feelings, thoughts, moods and
emotions that filled his belly with razors and his eyes with
tears were flown away. All that there was was a wall. And
that wall was going down.

It was probably a few moments after the wall had began to
crash that Joel realized what he's done. But before he did,
the other three walls went down as well. From that moment on
it was a matter of simple physics to tell what was going to
happen next. Joel had killed the wall, now the ceiling was
going to kill him. He tried to get out of the warehouse
before something real painful was going to happen. But the
broken wall had stopped him from managing to escape. Joel
tried to climb over the pieces of old dead wall and be out
of there - but they ceiling was ahead of him. The ceiling
was on top of his head.

"There is only one way to truly kill that rage" thought the
wall as he exhaled his last breath.