The Wall

I had so many dreams, but also so many fears. To tame those fears, those anxieties I had a man help me become the person I always wanted to be. He was my coach, the controller of my faith. His name is unimportant, but I liked to call him The Wall. When I was young, all I wanted to do was kiss the sky. I developed a love for airplanes, all I wanted to do was test my limits and be a fighter pilot in the air force. But then, The Wall told me, with his potent persuasion filling my head with worries and doubts. “What if it doesn’t work out? Pilots don’t make a lot of money, how will you support your future family?” What if you are not good enough, not smart enough? So I molded up a new Idea, I will become a footballer, all I ever wanted to do was hold the Champions cup in my palms. And hear the crowd scream when I score the final goal. I motivated myself into caressing the ball every day until the ball became an extension of myself. I became obsessed, all I wanted to do was play until the sun became gray. Even in the darkest hours, passion can light the alleyways with hope and hunger. But, once again, The Wall found me. He told me, “It is hard to be a footballer, not worth all the training. You will have 10 years tops to play, not nearly enough money to live.” “You don’t want to miss college parties It is too much fun! All the drugs, and all the teenage nostalgia. You will be homeless and living on the streets without a college degree.” So I crafted up a new Idea, I will be a business executive. I don’t want to become one of those over-wealthy sophisticated money-grabbers, but I have the rest of high school and college to have fun until I have to become one of them. So I decided to go with that plan, and The Wall agreed.

I had the next four years to have the time of my life until my life got so grim that it can only be lit with matches coming from the capsule of the pills that’ll become the diet I craved. So I met new friends, friends who had the same ideas as me. We would go get high, and Imagine that we were kissing the sky. We would go to the pitch late at night to get drunk and pretend that we had the champions cup in our hands. It was great, it almost felt real. But before we knew it, all the parties were over, all the weed was gone, and all the beers were chugged. It was time to meet fate, so I put on my suit and went to work. Every time I checked my bank account, The Wall came and smiled and told me how successful I was. The Wall told me that he was proud of the life I chose and congratulated me. Then he left, saying he didn’t need to help me anymore, I finally made it. He shook my hand and left with the intent of blowing all the candles out in the next offspring’s life.

Eventually in the life I have long feared, I woke up and convinced myself that I was finally happy. I had my own car, a beautiful child and a wife to tend to. The days has come and gone where I had the choice to choose. Even with this false sense of contentedness my mind slips into a deep distraction of my glory days, of the past. When the music stops and the noise dies, and I am left in my empty car with only sound to distract me from screaming thoughts in my mind. I think about all the possibilities, I think what could’ve been instead of what should’ve been. I spend my days dreaming, instead of living. When the traffic dies, and the interstate is open, my biggest fears confront me. I have to face the facts, I have to face the mental war that I have chose to take on alone. At home I only imagine what it would’ve felt like to kiss the sky, and what it would’ve been like to be a star on that pitch. I became obsessive, that is all I could think about, about how I didn’t even attempt to follow those dreams. I felt so broke and poor, that all I had was my wealth. I didn’t create anything, I just followed the man made path The Wall brought me to. I never created, I fell for the sin that is so commonly mistaken for a blessing, but I decided to make a choice. A choice that will forever change my reality, that will make my dreams a reality. That’s all I have ever wanted, with the decision that changed time and space. I left. I finally escaped the Wall, I finally escaped conformity with its dilution of dreams and promotion of normality. I was sick to the core with materialism and the tedious taunt of corporate ignorance. I have finally made the choice that affected my fate forever. I will no longer live in a world where my dreams are dead and my nightmares rise. I am gone and I will never be back.