The Wall

Part One

It was the wall that bugged me. Or at least, it does now. It never bugged me before, until now. Because today was the day that I actually thought about why it's there and what it's separating me from. Now I ask myself, "Why me? Alone, on this side of the wall?" Why should I care anyway, I have lived this way for as long as I can remember. Why does it bother me now?

It really shouldn't bother me. It is a very nice wall. A wall I have come to like. It's made of gray stone all held tight together by some un-seen glue. By the looks of it, you would think it was held by the brown-green thorny vines that trace down from the top of the wall to the bottom.

I now think about climbing these vines to the top of the wall to see what lies beyond it. But I didn't want to fall or get cut or break the vines. I also didn't want to leave my home. I'd built it not far from the wall; half a mile or so. I loved it. I built it myself with logs, stones sticks and leaves I found lying around. Somehow, someway, with some time, I pressed it all together to make this squared-shaped box with a roof made of twigs and leaves left over from the walls. Three of the walls are made of logs stacked on top of each other stuck together with some mud. The fourth wall was made with a bunch of flat stones put together like a puzzle since I ran out of mud to stick the logs together. The rest of the logs I used to build a frame for the roof and I covered that with twigs and leaves.

Surrounding the house is a forest. My house is set perfectly in the middle of a clearing with the trees of the forest twenty yards from each side of the house. As far as I've wandered, that was all that lay around; a forest and a river. The river is big, deep, and slow with clear water. I've never wandered farther from the river a mile from my home because I didn't want to get lost and the river was almost impossible to cross. It was surrounded by house from all four sides.

I'm proud of my home. I'm proud that I can live out here by myself. My grandfather was born Equality 7- 2523 but grew up to be Prometheus. He is my hero. He lived a hard life where no one was allowed to have individuality. You lived for others. He rediscovered the word "I" and from that he was able to realize that each person mattered. He lived out here in this forest, had my father with my grandmother, first known as The Golden One and then later became Gaea, and thrived. They rediscovered electricity and made the forest by his home, known as the Uncharted Forest, their home. I still have the books and manuscripts he wrote. He was a very good writer. He spoke his mind and wasn't afraid of all the trouble he would get into if the Council saw it. I hope I can be that good of a writer someday. Maybe I'll write about my adventures here.

My grandfather didn't live far from here, only five miles. I moved away when my parents died and decided that I will keep my grandfather's dream of man's individuality.

I wonder if this was part of the Uncharted Forest I heard my grandfather speak of. But he never spoke of this wall. Were the ruins of the city on the other side? Or is the city still alive? Are there people there? Is anything there? What if there is nothing? Nothing. The word hit me. Hard. I shook my head, clearing it of unspeakable thoughts that were starting to give me a headache. Why was I thinking these things anyway? I was eighteen! I could solve this problem later when I'm older and wiser. But why wait? My conscience said, why wait until you are too old to do anything about it? I had enough with my conscience! I will silence it by climbing that wall and seeing what is on the other side of the wall.

A couple hours later, I'm sitting in my house cooking fish over a fire in the middle of my home since I never wanted the electricity. It scared me. Inside my home I had a fire, a bed a wooden box filled with necessities and a few decorations. I got all this from the home my grandfather and grandmother lived in and where I was born.

Eating my cooked fish; I planned my new adventure that I never dared to take in the past. I needed rope, a pack, food and water. I finished up my fish and packed my pack that my grandfather discovered, untouched. I felt so excited, alive and happy like I did when I first explored the forest, going deeper and deeper as my adrenaline kept rising. I felt all that now but a little sadness too. I felt like I would never come back. Like the sadness I felt when I left my parents house.