Tourists of the Wall

Death makes people uncomfortable. And the wooden wall smelled like dead oak.
The scent makes the air go stale in the lungs. People breathed but felt as if drowning in the river. The wall took all that meant life and fed it to the bugs, its residents.

When the previous owners died, the house fell into the hands of the community. They tried selling it but failed. The realtor blamed the wall—a thick, impure skin in the basement. One look and the buyers' smiles turned to a stiff grimace. Their excuses came quickly and clumsily. The realtor knew they were made up. If one of these fat, shiny bugs squeezed out of the wood's invisible pores, it felt like buyers would vanish directly into the earth.

But then, a couple from the city bought it, almost unseen. He had a new job, and she needed fresh air. Room to breathe, to think about the baby. A child that she hoped for, she carried, but which God already marked for death for her sins. Standing before the wall for the first time, they knew they'd made a mistake. But the ink was dry, and there was no way back. Desperate, they hired the first local contractor to get the wall out. It was like a cancer that was about to build metastases. It needed to be cut out. The stone wall would be prosthetic and cold. A synthetic limb. But did they have a choice? The baby, if it would live, had enough to deal with. It didn't need bugs as playmates.

Soon, Pawel sat alone on his toolbox in the basement, staring at the wall with red, tired eyes. He'd heard stories of the house and this wall. He knew it was ugly, but he never expected blasphemy so vile even the left eye of God would dry to desert at the sight. But that's what he deserved. Everyone knew him: homeless, divorced—a drunk. Nobody gave him work, except these city people who didn't know him or... this place. He was a lost soul, and he was the only desperate fool willing to step foot in this godless house.

He took a sip from his Vodka. A cheap one. He was not used to drinking during the day. But there was no sunrise for him, and the night stretched endlessly. A nightmare without end, without waking.
His family was gone. No money. The town hated him. He begged for work, but the doors didn't open. People forgot who he was. He turned from a citizen to beggar, a parasite.

And then, his father died. Not peaceful. He screamed like a hungry baby. Cancer ate him, piece by piece, like a bug, but from the inside. And when the hunger was gone, so was his father. Pawel inherited the bills. And the pain, that ate him, every night, like the Cancer once did.

A bug came out from the wall. Pawel saw it but not where it came from. There was no opening. It slipped out like pus from a wound. Or did it bleed? The wall was bleeding bugs. Like a soldier bled to death on the battlefield.
When the creature came close, Pawel crushed it under his boot. It burst with the nasty sound of an overripe watermelon, wet and final. Pawel didn't worry about insect gore on his shoes. He'd seen worse things on him. In him.

He wanted to crush that man. To hear his breaking skull underfoot. What would it sound like? Like the beetle's last moment? Like a bursting egg? Or was it like breaking spare ribs in half?
That man had taken his wife. He deserved to die.
She told him that no man could take her. That she makes her own choices.
Men were all wolves. He once was one. He knew how he cast his spell years ago. She made him a dog. That was her spell—a curse. And now, she howled with the next wolf.
When Pawel saw them together, they looked like dogs.
He wanted to stop the thoughts. But they poured in like water. They always found a weak spot. Black water poisoned his mind and made him weak—less than a dog.
He reached for his medicine. Deprived of all light, desperate to forget what was once. The next fix. Sometimes, he hoped for the final fix.
He saw the torture. The blood, the bones. And the spine, when it would see the dark clouds for the first time. When the man's head burst in his hands, and it was all over, it would be like the sun rising after a long winter night.
But he couldn't do it.
He was a dog, no wolf anymore.
Pawel's heart felt so heavy it might fall from his chest, landing next to the dead bug. Maybe it was as black and ruined as the tiny cadaver on the floor.
It felt dead.
But if you feel stings and needles whenever you think of someone, you're probably still alive. Pain proves you are alive.

He took another sip of the Vodka.
Nobody would be waiting when he got home.
He'd send her the money. Like clockwork.
He could sit here, on this toolbox.
And sit.
Wait for the day to pass.
The next day would be the same.
A perfect cycle of nothing.
No warmth.
No life.
Just a transfer of money.
He had nothing. Except the heart of a smashed bug.

For a moment, he stopped the black water from pouring in. He had a job. He should do it. What was he even thinking? Better to let the tools sing rather than drowning in self-pity, stomping bugs for sport.

He turned to the oak wall.
No human would have ever built such a monstrosity, but here it was. A tombstone. Prison. Home of the bugs.
He grabbed his pickaxe.
One swing. Another.
Again.
Again.
And again.
Zack. Zack. Zack, Pawel.

Every hit caused thunder to roll through the house. The echoes kept the water from pouring in. Like screams from the wall that did not live.
Or was it?
Had Pawel killed it?
Wumm, wumm.
Again.
Again.
The screams didn't stop, until a small hole cracked open in the wood, a wound in the tombstone.
Sweating, Pawel dropped the pick axe.
Took another sip from the Vodka. The heat of a lighter, the burning smoke of a cigarette filled the room. His hands were shaking. His clothes were wet from the work. The sweat was not from the effort. From the drink.
The disease of all drinkers.
Vodka: the scentless lord of hell.

The crowbar slid into the hole like it was made for it. Briefly, he remembered how that Wolf must have slid... but then he kept the water out.
Pawel felt like a surgeon, but a bad one. Shaking hands gave the wall a shot of steel.
Then he pushed.
Resist.
The wall fought with all its strength. It didn't want to open, not for Pawel.
Again, the water came back, but now Pawel resisted.
Something changed. The wall got weaker.
Pawel braced his foot against the wall and pulled.
With the sound of ribs breaking, the wood broke, and the chest split open wide.
Like a surgeon, Pawel could briefly see what no one should ever see.
Then the planks burst, screamed their final curses.
Pawel fell, surprised by the sudden death of his enemy.
He slammed his head against the concrete.
First, a dull crash, like a car hit him. Then needles. His familiar friends.
His eyes blurred. Lights faded, no longer needed.
Did the wall kill him?
Had the wall won?
Would he die before the wall?

The cancer got him back to the light.
Another hospital bill? Damn it. He'd better die here. Quickly. He'd rather die here than convince doctors that his pain was worth treating. He could only lose. The needles left. His vision returned.
Today was not the day.

He sat up. Blood ran down his neck. Not too much. What a happy day.

He stared into the dark, screaming mouth of the wall. No living could hear the screams, but Pawel saw it. Stared directly into it. The dark void, which was once a chest. Now, it was the abyss.
Then the bugs came. Tens, hundreds, thousands. They ran from the sinking ship, saved their tiny black shells. Poured from the wooden mouth like vomit.
She was in agony. The wall spat out her intestines. The bugs were the walls' living gore.
At first, they followed invisible streets as if the great master bug commanded them.
Then, the commander must have died, and the civilization was doomed to die. It collapsed.
Now, they were only guts, like everyone else's intestines.
Chaos. Every direction is right. Every step is wrong.
Those who don't move will die.
Those who do will die, too.

Pawel rose, cursing. Bugs never scared him. He lived among them soon after his wife left him. But so many, so close?
He stomped. Crushed them.
In pairs. Tens. Hundreds.
He started to enjoy killing them.
Something clicked. The black water flooded back. This time, it was not about his wife. It was a mission. He got a mission to kill.

Kill them all!

His heart hammered. It would explode; it pumped too much blood.
Was this the end? Or the beginning? Was he a wolf again?
Some bugs were on him. Some got under his shirt. Some moved under his skin?
He got the shirt off, used it as a weapon.
Hit the bugs. Hit himself.

Kill.
Kill.
Kill.

Zack, zack, zack.
You remember how it was.

His vision blurred. Blood trickled down. His heart now dwelled inside his head. He was a head-heart-man. An abomination. A blasphemy.

Suddenly–silence.
The bugs vanished. They found a new commander. Willingly eaten by the next hellmouth.
The room was still.
Except for Pawel's heart.
It echoed through the walls of this house like an archaic drum beating the sounds of war. A war that Pawel had won.

Pawel took a long sip from the Vodka. His head felt like a hornet's nest, but the wound had no more blood to give.
He reached for his crowbar again. He was behind schedule. It was already evening. The war ended, but he had to clean up the wounded until the evening.
He opened the mouth wider, broke out its teeth and jaws.
The smell changed.
It wasn't a mouth.
It was a pair of lungs. Swollen, eaten by a cancer. A cancer called Pawel.
Lungs that once kept ancient air, air of a dead time.
Finally, enough light spilled in.
And he saw it.

It was a thing that once was a person. Someone who had laughed and cried. And dried out, like a plum in the sun. It sat in the corner, looking at Pawel, and Pawel stared back.

He wondered if he should scream. But he was too tired for that.

Was this truly dead? Did he see right?
Its eyes were wide. Like deep holes.
Was this the bugs' home? Bug city?
A nursery of bugs? A graveyard where new life was born?
Did the jaw move? Did it want to say something?

It looked at Pawel.
Pawel looked at it.
What did it say?

"Close the door behind you."

Pawel was not sure if he'd heard it. Maybe he imagined it.

But then:
"Close the door, it's drafty."

This corpse... Mother?
Mom?
Zack. Zack. Zack.
Her memory felt like a warm wind cutting through an ice blizzard. This corpse had everything it needed. Just sitting. No pain. Existing as part of the wall. Nursing little bugs, feeding them. Serving a purpose. A true mother.

No taxes. No divorces. No money.
It was just one thing: host of the bugs. Friend of the wall.
And Pawel broke into this beautiful world. He, Destroyer of all Worlds. Asked to close the door. He was Death, but existence itself laughed at a petty fool.
No retaliation.
No petty whining.
But close the door. It's drafty.
Pawel envied the corpse. What a wonderful life. Or, existence.

That's when he rejected.
Rejected himself.
He, Death, no longer wanted to be the Grim Reaper.
He tore down the wooden wall only to build a new church.
For the corpse. And for the thousands of bugs whose homes he destroyed.

He brought water like wine, mixed mortar like bread.
Stones ready, desperate to become the new wall.
Hurry, hurry.
Zack.
Zack, zack, zack.
The mortar was blood. Thick. Fluid of life.
Glue of what was once lost.
Stone by stone, he measured with a thin cord–the red thread of the Norns connecting the world of bugs with the world of the shell-less.
Obsessed with precision, the black water felt like a fault in existence. A mistake.
Then, he built.
Cleaned the wound.
Made it all whole again.

The corpse stayed silent but observed what Pawel did. Did it say something?

"Don't worry, buddy. It's back up in no time."
"Thank you, Death."

Do corpses have a name? Do names vanish like souls?
Is a corpse just a host for bugs? Or is it like a garden?

The first line of stones took the longest, they had to be perfect. Now, the second row was up much faster.

Pawel built. One row after the other. Mortar became the glue of his life.
The light dimmed. Every stone sealed the fate–woven into the nest of the bugs.
And when he placed his last stone, all light was gone.
Pawel breathed for the first time in years.
The lungs of the wall exhaled with him.
Breathed the corpse. Inhaled the mortar.
Welcomed Pawel.
Unwashed. It made him clean.
Made him one with the wall.
The wall.
Made him whole.
He was no longer Death.
He was at home.

He sat beside the corpse.
It dragged its arms around him.
How much he missed the touch. The love.
Pawel waited for the time to pass.
The air thickened. Made him slow.
Sleepy.
Slow.

Voices outside.
Upset.
Pawel had no words.
He didn't move.
He didn't talk.

The bugs.
On his forehead.
Old friends, returning.
How did they find their way?
They do.
The cracks of every city are their paths.
Like tourists, they find their way.
But now they returned.
No longer tourists.
They were home.

"Welcome back," Pawel said.
"I am glad you found your way."

Pawel became Mother.