Moving Through Walls by Paul Point

Ronald Turner stubbed out a smoke in a plant pot caked in stale

ash. Choked, the cactus that lived there was haggard and greyed

bare by the stash of dog ends and toxic cinders, knowing only a

life of dim light and locked windows.

..

He was the kind of guy who hadn’t earned his environment – he

inherited it. In the same way an inmate inherits a ball and chain

it clung to him like a picture frame. Call him the product of it –

a victim of impositions – he would call you a fool and drill

down into your decisions that he sees as highlighting his

abandoned ambitions, not as the tools that make bricks, in the

walls of cathedrals.

..

No plans today; he got up anyway.

..

He wasn’t without skill recalling odd facts and information at

will, though often strained by tradition, dull and mundane.

Addiction lit another cigarette with a match, since his lighter

was broken and out of gas. That metaphor echoing his feeling

of disdain which amused him – at first – and then meandered

through melancholy even worse, at the start of a stormy

Sunday.

..

No desire today; he kept smoking anyway.

..

Amongst others he would often be the butt of all jokes, drawing

the short straw and be labelled both: the blackest of sheep and

the friendliest ghost. He mirrored moons and planets he read in

a few books, the ones he envied for the peace he assumed they

knew – Looks, were exchanged with an old mirror; cracked,

examining dents, cloaked scars facing the fact he’d never wash

them away, flannelling water and scented soap bars.

..

No one to impress today; he freshened up anyway.

..

For him life lived on a passing cloud, hopes of grasping he

coped without, tending to touch that empty feeling, the

whispers of thrills that filled traces of breathing. He knew the

world as a place he had no place in and nestled himself in that

negative space within. No one learnt the landscapes better than

he, not even the astronomy he studied solidly when solitude

grappled his mind and strangled his body.

 

..

 

Below is a short film based on this spoken word story: