by Dante Bortolotti

I stare endlessly into the floral wallpaper of this old decrepit house. For the last few months, the petals have begun to peel, leaves falling silently onto the equally aged tile beneath them. I can’t explain why, but it feels mocking. Each new flake and tear that appears is like a taunting smile. It fills me with this indescribable, white-hot rage.

As if it could read my mind, I watch another yellowed petal flutter to the ground, and all the blood in my veins rushes to my head. I lunge at the wall before me, clawing into it with bared teeth like a rabid dog.

What lies behind the wallpaper is not old rotting wood as I had expected it to be. It is not that at all. The air escapes my lungs as I peer into the hole before me. It is nothingness. It isn’t black, it’s some other thing. It’s the absence of something.

With a cautious curiosity, I reach a hand into it. It isn’t hot, it isn’t cold. It is the absence of a temperature. I put a leg in to see how far down this hole stretches, and to my surprise, my foot hits solid ground. The curiosity reels me in, both feet on the somehow-existent ground, both arms feeling through open space for any somehow existent objects, and my body fully immersed in this gaping void.

Out of nowhere comes a flash of color and a light footstep rippling through the dead silence. A single white cat comes to sit in front of me. I’m awestruck by the situation entirely. My wallpaper is concealing this whole other plane of existence in which a cat somehow lives? This cat looks at me with crystal blue eyes and blinks once or twice.

“Your anger will get you nowhere, dear,” it speaks suddenly. “Look what you’ve done. You’ve opened this rift. You’ve made more of a mess with your heart than what was originally there. If you let your head speak first, you wouldn’t be here. How will you fix this?”

I am only able to shake my head in shock. Have I begun to hallucinate? Did someone sneak something into my morning pills?

“Look where your fit of reactionary anger has led you. Into nothing. A hole of nothing, that gets you nowhere. Do you see?” It continues to blink at me with those innocent jewel eyes, so contrary to what it is saying.

“I see.”

No sooner can I get the words out than I awake on the hard, cold floor. I turn my head to the wall, and there is no hole. It is the same as before: peeling and cracking, no void behind it.

I get to my feet and stare at the crumbling flowers on the wall. I sigh heavily, casting out every last drip of anger in my blood. I will fix this. I will get in my car, and I will go get more wallpaper. I will patch up the decay. I will repair the wound instead of ripping it open
further.

I turn to look outside my window. There is a white cat sitting on the fence in my yard, bathed in sunlight. As I look at it, it looks at me. It meows once, silent to me on the other side of the glass. It gazes sweetly at me, with crystal blue eyes.

This piece won the November 2024 contest:”Your wallpaper has been peeling for several months. Fed up, you tear it off. What lies behind it?”