by Douglas Young<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Winston smiled driving home from his after-school job. Twelfth grade was going well for the eighteen-year-old, and he really liked working at The Cluttered Bookshop, a downtown used bookstore where he mostly read while the free-range cats, led by the seven-toed Mr. Cheshire, climbed bookshelves and rested wherever they pleased.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Arriving home, what first struck Winston was how spotless and orderly his house was, in contrast to the bookstore where, in addition to all the books crammed onto bookshelves, there were stacks of paperbacks on the floor, author posters all over the walls, and bowls of milk and cat food scattered throughout the store. Though he loved the bookstore\u2019s laid-back vibe, he now admired how immaculate his mother kept their home.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Since no one replied when he announced his arrival, he figured the family must be upstairs. After drinking from his refrigerator water bottle, he glanced at the newspaper on the kitchen counter and headed toward his bedroom.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But upon entering the hallway leading to the stairs, Winston was stunned to see a hole in the wall. It clearly pierced the wallpaper and was a few inches in diameter. Having lived in the house for years and walked down that hall many times daily, he figured that he would surely have noticed such an anomaly before, and his parents would never have allowed such to remain. He had walked right by the spot that morning on his way to breakfast and saw nothing unusual. Squinting closer at the opening, he tried to imagine what caused it.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Dumbfounded, he slowly walked to the den where he was surprised to see his mother on the sofa hunched over a magazine. She didn\u2019t hear me when I arrived and said \u2018Hello\u2019?<\/em> he wondered. His mother did not look up but instead appeared absorbed in her reading.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cHey, Mom,\u201d he said tentatively with a wrinkled brow.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cHello, dear,\u201d she replied without raising her head. He blinked twice and hesitated before speaking again.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cAh, Mom, did you know there\u2019s a hole in the wall in the hall?\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There was no response. Winston blinked again and stood uncomprehending. After several seconds his mother quickly turned the page.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cUm,\u201d her elder son began again. \u201cI think there really is a hole in the wall\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cNo there\u2019s not,\u201d came the clipped reply. His mother\u2019s head remained buried in the magazine as she quickly crossed her legs.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 After blinking again and wrinkling his brow, her son slowly spoke, carefully planning each word.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cHave you looked just down the hall? I\u2019m pretty sure there\u2019s a decent-sized hole in the wall. I studied it up close and actually have no doubt about it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 His mother rapidly turned another page and lifted the magazine before plopping it in her lap again, still yet to look up. Winston considered trying to make his case again before deciding to drop it. So he turned toward the stairs, being careful to confirm there really was a hole in the wall before heading up to his room.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He ascended the stairs much slower than usual trying to make sense of the hole, his mother\u2019s denial of its existence, and her strange demeanor. Could I really have failed to notice such a thing after all the years we\u2019ve lived here?<\/em> he asked himself. No! Of course not, and what\u2019s with Mom not initially greeting or looking at me and denying the hole\u2019s even there? And just how did it get there?<\/em> he wondered.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Thoroughly weirded out and not wanting to face his mother again, he fought off disturbing thoughts by doing his homework. Finishing it early and realizing dinner was still a ways off, he read some in the novel assigned by his English teacher, George Orwell\u2019s 1984<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Concluding his mother had now had time to check out the hole for herself, Winston headed back downstairs. But, entering the downstairs hall, he was astonished to see no hole, for now a framed painting of a parrot whose bright colors matched the wallpaper hung where the hole had been.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Amazed, with his mouth ajar, Winston blinked, widened his eyes, and stared at the painting to conclude, Either that painting was not there less than an hour ago, I\u2019m losing touch with reality, or I\u2019ve entered Wonderland, Oz, Narnia, or the Twilight Zone<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Now even more perplexed and starting to question his sanity and that of his mother, he gradually turned around and went back upstairs, this time to his fifteen-year-old brother\u2019s room. Outside his door could be heard loud heavy metal music. Winston wondered why hard rockers always seemed so angry. With all their fame, fortune, and gorgeous gals, what did they have to be upset about?<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 After knocking on the door, his unusually subdued brother opened it, looking distinctly distant but not angry. Curious what had draped such a pall over the house, Winston spoke.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cDo you know anything about that hole in the wall downstairs? Have you seen it?\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lying back on his bed, Dayton looked at the ceiling before answering in a low voice.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI punched it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 With widened eyes, a barely comprehending Winston at last responded.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI wanted to go out with Fletcher and Arnold, but Momma wouldn\u2019t let me on account of they\u2019re three grades ahead of me and supposedly smoking dope.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cAh,\u201d his elder sibling replied, as if a Kafkaesque kaleidoscope had suddenly metamorphosed into a mirror. \u201cWell, kudos for only hitting a wall. Is your hand okay?\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cJust some bruised and swollen knuckles,\u201d Dayton answered showing his scraped red knuckles.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cDon\u2019t sulk too much,\u201d his big brother advised. \u201cThanks to you, there\u2019s now a beautiful new painting hanging in the hall.\u201d His brother could not help chuckling.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Winston never heard of the matter again, for the hole in the wall had been quietly thrown down the family\u2019s memory hole where it would forever remain a non-event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Douglas Young \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Winston smiled driving home from his after-school job. Twelfth grade was going well for the eighteen-year-old, and he really liked working at The Cluttered Bookshop, a downtown used bookstore where he mostly read while the free-range cats, led by the seven-toed Mr. Cheshire, climbed bookshelves and rested wherever they pleased.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1822,77],"tags":[1565,1821,1123],"class_list":["post-16042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-egophobia-87","category-english","tag-douglas-young","tag-egophobia-87","tag-english"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DakB-4aK","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16042"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16043,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16042\/revisions\/16043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}