The Walls

  I had lived for decades in a room with nicotine stained walls – and dirty windows I couldn’t bear to look out of.  I lived with the same stench of smoke and mildew swimming around my nostrils.  I became part of the smell – the fetid odour, weak, and dribbling, slopping about, just about existing – wafting from one segment of open air to the other.  
  Drifting.
  Drifting.  
  Like a foul smell.
  I would go from my room to my job.
  I walked under the black skies.  
  It was always dark.  
  So much smoke in the air.
  NO stars.
  The moon was a dream.
  What was the moon?
  What was the sun?
  All dreams.
  Just thoughts that go into the mind and jump about and play games with each other every now and then – fun games that just about keep the boredom at bay.  
  I always liked to dream of a sunny day.  Damn!  Just one sunny day…
  Can you imagine a sunny day?  A walk in the park?  The wind singing in the trees, the water kissing the beech, sending a sweet hiss into the air?  Seagulls screaming – happy to be alive.
  Just a dream.
  All a dream.
  There was nothing else but dreams when you live in one room with yellow walls – with one road leading to work.  
  You need dreams when you walk under the night sky.
  And the evil thing about life, with all its smoky smells and mildew, is that it tries to steal your dreams.  
  But you have got to say no.  You’ve got to hang on for dear life to those dreams.  Carry them as crystal rings on your bony fingers.  Let those beautiful diamonds shine somewhere, in your heart if there’s nowhere else and if some foul stench tries to rip them away put a cage round that vital piece of beating muscle, put soldiers there with knifes and assassinate that fiend without guilt and sorrow.
  Just do it.
  Fight the assassin.
  Beat the rigour of that phantom.  
  Don’t let it steal your dreams.
  But it will.