The White Brick Wall

When I was just a girl, my Mother would tell me bed time stories of a place where the characters in books lived. Where I could go and have my own fairytale. She'd exclaim that that is how she met my Father.

You see, my Mother was a writer. She would write avidly for herself and herself only. Not a soul had read her works. Until one day, she had been visiting a small town in Vermont. While she was taking in the fall foliage, she had spotted a hidden bookstore. In this bookstore, there was this wall filled with white brick. Something in her had told her to take a closer look. As if she was being fooled with her very eyes. My mother never enjoyed being tricked.

She had told me that with the brush of her fingers, she was pulled through the wall. Once through, there was a man standing. With the same hands that had taken her there. When their eyes caught sight of one another, she felt a familiarity. She swore she knew him from somewhere. Once she demanded why he had taken her there and who he was, he told her that he had been waiting patiently for her since she had written his existence in ink.

She had told me that at first she thought that the man was a lunatic. But as she got to know him, she saw the alignments of his character. Everything she had ever written about him, he displayed without any effort. From his name to his characteristics.

My mother was a writer. Not in the ways of the norm. She never had luck with love. All the men she had dated, never stuck. So one day, she decided to write about a man that would be perfect for her. One that would always keep her safe and loved.

The man from the white brick was the very man that had been written on paper.

And that man was my Father.