Wall with a story

Vacation is over. No more holiday. No more long plays in the backgarden or on the streets. Tabril had loved it. To explore the world in his neighborhood. Tall houses each housing lots of families with persons working in the nearby sausage factory. Earning just enough to live on the edge. Most of the houses reflected the state of the wallet of the owners. Painting to be done, broken windows, doors with additional locks. On occasion a house in a bright color as if the paint was an extra special bargain at Walmart's. Some of the houses had basements that collected the garbage traveling over the street with every wind blow. Here and there a foul odor of urine making clear that the downward end of the stairway was occupied by a tramp.

The colors of the houses were mirrored in the clothes of Tabril. Not matching at all, faded and at some places totally worn down. It didn't matter much to Tabril, as he was young and still lived as a child, not seeing the poverty and state his surrounding was in.

In a call for supporting the poorer areas of the city, a school was funded with money and teachers to house more children than ever. Tabril was one of the students. 

Gabriel, his father, walked with him to school. He was not the only parent to join his child to the school. Tabril recognized most of the children. The majority of them not wanting to go to school, slowing down their pace or trying to run away. A number of parents held a hand of their child, just to pull them in the right direction.

Tabril knew he had to follow his father close by as he could feel the bad vibes Gabriel was radiating. He picked up a pebble and whenever he could he moved it against an object. Be it a tree, a wall or an iron fence. He liked the noise it made and in some cases the memory it left as the mark remained visible in the touched object.

Tabril had trouble to learn at school when the teacher handled words, sentences and calculations. However when they were allowed to draw, paint or make something he was really concentrated. At the end of the day he walked back home himself. His father and mother being at work. On his way and the next morning he marked only the trees that he saw.

His father was in a bad mood when he came home. He yelled at his mother. Something about a production line that would close. To avoid their shouting Tabril went up to his room and used the pencil he had taken from school to finish the drawing of the dragon that he had started yesterday. Although only black lines, the fire coming from its mouth, radiated.

Along his walk up to school there was a wall that stretched on and on. With a pebble he had marked it for a circle. Tabril grated a stone in the same place over and over. Each day the same circle. The second line was also a circle. The third day another circle on a piece of the wall following the other circles. Cross graffiti made by others with aerosols in bright colors that didn't match the area at all, but lifted ones spirit. 

At home, Tabril worked on the next drawing, a castle with one large tower and a woman looking outside an opening. The arms of the woman spread out as if to receive the warmth of the dragon on the next drawing. Each drawing making a connection to the next one as in a total story.

On the forth day, Tabril went up to the school and only made a long stripe of a meter on the next part of the stone wall. The earlier made circles became deeper and more visible from a distance.

At school he learned new words and about presidents of the past. Only when an image of such a famous person Tabril looked up and noticed the dignified way he looked to the painter. He absorbed the way their bodies were placed and how the colors were used.

On his way home he broke his rhythm of only placing one marking on the wall. Today he placed another one, again a large one of a meter. On his way home he felt proud of the earlier made long and short engravings that he had made in the last days. Only he knew about them.

On the last day of the school, the Friday he placed another smaller mark, a circle again, on the sixth piece of the wall. His walk home after school was slow. He didn't want to be at home. Outside there was far more to see, to notice, to learn. He knew what would be going on at home. He noticed he was not wrong when he opened the door. His father yelling and cursing. This time he was more vicious. The cookie jar, normally on the table, flew against the wall and shattered. Tabril's mother was crying and kneeled near the glass pieces. He wanted to help, but his mother send him away to his room.

Tabril heard his father should when he reached the top of the stairs, "I'll never get another job." Faull language followed.

During the weekend, Trabil spend as much time as possible outside. He went over to the wall and scripted it with another circle. He deepened the earlier made marks. At the end of the day he couldn't help it, he had to place another circle. A deep and clear one as well. When the street lights came on, he went home.

His mother was in the kitchen, preparing dinner. Red eyes and a number of tissues told Tabril enough of what had happened today. His father had placed himself in front of the tv-set and had a number emptied beer cans surrounding him.

On the Sunday, Tabril left the house as soon as he could. He went over to the wall to see his progression. He made a last, ninth, mark in the form of a circle. From a distance he could see the result. He hoped others as well:

. . . - - - . . .

On the Monday he was up early as he could hear a large machine, something was pounding against stone or concrete. He rushed over to 'his' wall. They were knocking it down. No one would see how beautiful he had prepared his SOS.