The Crack in the Wall

I knew it wasn’t just a crack. My mum said it was just a crack, but I knew better. It just appeared one day, on my wall, next to my bed, an irregular, jagged line. I’m not scared of anything, the dark or spiders or heights. But this is different. It radiated the unknown, the darkness and the light, the begging and the end, everything and nothing. But it was just a crack in the plaster. Right? Boy was everyone wrong.

When I got home, it was with a tear stained face. Olivia Hornby was teasing me. Again. Of course, my parents didn’t notice. Sometimes I wish they would, other times I think it would make things worse. It was just an average day, the sun burning bright and the clouds slowly crawling across the sky. I went upstairs to my room and lay on my bed and cried. I cried so much that nothing else mattered. Almost nothing else. I could feel the presence of the crack, I always did. It hung in the air and the back of my mind. On a better day, it might have felt forlorning. But today, it was a comfort, something to hold onto as I wept myself dry. I only left my room for a couple of minutes, to clean myself up and eat, but in that short time the crack had grown. Not in the normal way though. It had grown higher.

Now where a thin line of plaster lay mere minutes ago, a three-foot hole was in the wall, same jagged outline. However, there was no other side, instead a white light burned bright. After a minute or so, it burned out. I looked through, expecting to see wall or another room. I got more than I bargained for.

I saw space. Blinding stars and small, colourful explosions everywhere. I saw the universe in a way that most will never. A soft light lay gently on my eyes, making me tired and calm. I had no idea how this was happening, but I was glad. To see something so beautiful and extraordinary was calming and exciting and sad all at once. I stood with my head in the hole, just looking. All was well until I was brutally snapped back into reality. My mother was calling my name.

“MARY!” she yelled.

“What!” I screamed back. There was no reply. “WHAT!” I yelled louder.

“MARY STOP IGNORING ME!” she yelled. I growled. How convenient she never hears my response. I go down the steps fuming.

“What mother?” I ask. She points out the lounge room door from the couch she is sitting on.

“Grab my phone,” she demands. The phone in question is just outside the door on the kitchen bench. How shallow she is to get me to retrieve something mere meters away. I give it to her without receiving a thank you and leave to gaze once again upon the stars. The only problem is, it has sealed up to its normal size, radiating the ominous feeling again. I curse at my mum for making me lose a once in a life time opportunity when I realize it could have all been in my head. I climb into bed and cry tears I thought I had expelled from my body. Just my luck, the only good thing to happen to me was a figment of my imagination.

Once again, school was a downer. Olivia and her gang teased me again. You’d think they’d get a life and leave me alone, right? Wrong. I am once again crying. Crying for my horrid parents, terrible school, unfortunate crack. I cry for my meaningless existence. Once again, I go clean myself up and feast upon microwaved chicken. I am opening my door to eat my sad meal at my sad desk when my plans are knocked askew. The crack is opened again, spilling a blinding light out by the bucket full. I wait for it to extinguish and take my plate over. I stick my head through, expecting to see stars, but instead see a sort of forest. It looks almost comical with bright flowers and differently shaped trees, something you might see from a children’s dinosaur movie. That’s when the huge foot slams on the ground. I look up to see a true miracle.

“Dinosaur,” I mutter.

The giant foot continues on, revealing it to be connected to a triceratops. It’s a sort of orange brown but the frills around its neck are covered in bright pink patterns of swirls. I almost laugh. Suddenly it sniffs and turns in my direction it starts to come over and I panic and cower before my plate. It stops and eyes my plate. I experimentally move it around. Its eyes follow the microwaved chicken with interest. I through my some of my meal away and watch as the dinosaur bounds after it. Suddenly my once said meal isn’t so sad anymore. It comes back and sits. I eat my chicken and scratch it like it’s an overgrown puppy. This is better than the stars. It gets up to leave as night falls and I watch my surroundings. Then I hear my mum calling for me again. I don’t want to leave but she will come up and almost certainly take away my happiness with her mere presence. So, I go down to see what she wants. Once again it is a shallow need, easily done, and without a thank you, I bound up the stairs to return to the biggest disappointment of my life, tied with last night. The crack has once again become that, a crack. I lay in bed, disappointed but hopeful. Maybe it will be there tomorrow.

For the rest of that week, my schedule remains the same with little alterations. I come home, cry a bit from all the stress. Clean up and fetch pitiful food. Only that food isn’t so pitiful when I return to my room to see the crack has become a portal once again. I watch the wheel being made and the cysteine chapel being painted. Not all are good though. I watch ‘witches’ get burnt and a world war II bombing. All is interesting though. But by far the best one was on Friday. I had cried a little extra today as my teacher had yelled at me, just because he could. My mum made me clean her bedroom, so I was very sad. Then I got a meal that would have been a disappointment, even by my standards, if not for the fact that I have a magical crack to eat it with. This time, I see a dining room with a grand table of polished wood and a fire place down one end. There is no one but a girl my age in an old English dress, new at the time of course, but old to me. She looks up at me which is strange because only the animals can usually see me.

“Hello,” she says. “Might I ask what you are doing on my dining room wall?”

“Hello, I’m not really sure. Nice to meet you though, I’m Mary. What is your name?” I reply.

“I’m Mary too. We’re are you from?”

“That’s complicated.” Then I notice her tear stained cheeks. “My, are you crying? For whatever for?”

“That’s complicated as well. For, you see, my father is very wealthy but he does not love me, so I am to dine on my own in this vast, lonely hall. And I have no friends. No wealthy person would be my friend as they have better to chose from and father would never appreciate my befriending of a peasant.”

“My, that sounds dreadful. I have a similar problem, though, so I understand. My mother does not love me, and I am to eat pitiful meals in my bedroom, alone. I have no friends and this one girl with her friends is constantly belittling me and being putrid.” So, we talk for a while, getting to know each other. We share food. Hers is fancy but nice and mine is flung together and different. We both enjoy ourselves. Her, the girl of a wealthy man, me, the girl in the dining room wall. After a while, she has to leave and without her to brighten up the dining room, it becomes dreary and intimidating. So, for the first time, I leave voluntarily.

I leave the room to have some dessert of ice-cream, a treat I had to steal from the fridge, and return to my room. The crack is, once again, a crack. I sleep fitfully that night, although my day was improved by the other Mary. When I wake up in the morning, the crack is gone. My mother does not remember any crack and she constantly goes on about it not being scary at all. I ask anyone who’s heard about my crack if they remember. But no one does. I am the only one that remembers the crack, forlorn on my bedroom wall. The adventured I had through it, gone forever, but mere memories. And the other Mary. It was a once in a life time experience, and despite the pain I had when it was taken away, I wouldn’t forget it for anything. Not it or the little girl in the dining room.