The Wall

I was disgusted but relieved at their greed.

I took both Rash’s hands and shook off the grotesqueness this place was steeped in with a shudder. I stared at my friend. My ghost. He returned my stare and then cupped his hand to my face; it felt like he might pass right through me like smoke. When I saw his eyes, the disbelief and happiness reflected there, I realized I was a ghost to him too.

“Wow, Soar.” He traced my jaw with his finger. “No scar.”

I took his hand between both of mine. “Not on the outside anyway.”

“I guess you have a pretty interesting story to tell me,” he said, flashing his white teeth and winking.

I laughed quietly, touching my stomach. “I certainly do, but not now.” I pulled out the spare gloves and booties from my pack, my fingers brushing the toy train I had shoved in there the morning I’d left my son. My heart squeezed uncomfortably. “Put these on,” I said, bounding towards the wall, feeling light as a feather and as heavy as a block of lead sinking to the bottom of a lake.

I’d lost my mother and gained my friend. But loss is loss. It wouldn’t be so easy to exchange one for the other. My grief would follow me.

But for now, I had to show Rash how to climb the wall like a lizard.

Rash took to climbing fairly easily, swearing under his breath at how unfit he was when he slipped. But he didn’t slip much. We got to the top and looked back at Pau. I was about to say something meaningful. To say farewell this place I’d called home for sixteen years when Rash gripped my wrist and held up my hand, making it wave jerkily. “So long, suckers!” he said, way too loudly, and swung himself down the other side, shimmying down the wall impressively quick.

I smothered a giggle, rolled my eyes, and followed. Finding the wall a bit slippery with morning dew, I slid down the last part of the wall and landed on my butt in the mud.

“Graceful as always,” Rash said, extending his hand. I slapped it away and was about to make a snide comment about his lack of gentlemanliness when I heard footsteps coming towards us. Careen’s face appeared, floating in the half-light, illuminated by her handheld. A dark figure walked beside her. Tall and lean. They were muttering to each other. Even at their hushed tone, I could hear a melody in his voice. It was familiar but in a removed kind of way, like an overheard conversation. The voice grated. It grazed the edges of my memory and tried to pull something reluctantly to the surface.

I ran at Careen and jumped, knocking her to the ground in a fierce embrace. She was shocked to say the least. “What’s wrong with you?” she exclaimed, but her voice was relieved and she responded to my affection with a squeeze, our chests squishing together.

I shuffled backwards. “Sorry, I’m just glad you’re ok,” I muttered, embarrassed, realizing we were being watched by a stranger. The figure chuckled lightly, a sound that rang bells in my ears. I shook my head to clear it.

“Where’s your mother and the baby? And who’s this?” Careen said as she lurched towards Rash threateningly.

I scrambled to my feet and put myself between them. Rash stood there with his hands up, smirking. “Hey. Settle down there, lovely lady. I’m a friend,” Rash said. He leaned over to me and whispered, “Are all the Survivors this gorgeous?”

Careen’s head snapped towards me questioningly.

I rattled out the quickest response I could, blurting out too many details and not enough, laughing hysterically as I explained how Paulo had tried to kill me with a telephone. The dark figure lurked in the background, swaying from foot to foot like he was going to run at me. I squinted at him as I spoke, but I couldn’t make out a face in the squandering light. “She wouldn’t come,” I said, starting to sob, the pressure of my failure wrenching my insides. “She didn’t want me.” I was pathetic.

Rash and Careen put their arms around me. “It’s ok, you tried,” Careen said soothingly.

“Yeah and you got a great consolation prize,” Rash said.

“You’re hardly a prize,” I snorted.

“That’s the spirit!” he said, elbowing me in the ribs playfully.

“Ouch.” I was so sore from my scuffle with Paulo.

“Whoops, sorry,” he said sheepishly.

Careen touched my ribs again and I winced. Her voiced sounded terribly serious when she said, “I think he broke a rib, Rosa. Can you walk?”

I was confused. I’d been walking, ru

He was silent, too silent, and it bothered me. I took the torch from my pack and walked towards him, my legs jabbing out from under me like they weren’t my own.

“And who’s this?” I asked suspiciously. Something about him didn’t sit right. I flicked the torch on, the stream of light blinding. His eyes were tightly shut as the brightness showered his face. I lowered it a little so he could see. So I could see him.

He opened his eyes and smiled nervously. I drew in a breath and it poisoned me. My heart refused to beat.

Finally, I held the missing piece of the puzzle. But as I placed it in its rightful spot, the picture shook and changed. Old realities shifted, confusion dominated. Suddenly, half my life made a whole lot more sense but just as surely, the other half of my reality split open spectacularly.

He blinked and opened his mouth to speak.

Don ’t speak.

Shadows darkened and light penetrated. Could you feel insane with rage and full of joy at the same time?

One blue eye and one brown.

The world was spiraling down or I was plummeting through the earth—I couldn’t tell. But as I fell to the ground, shock and exhaustion pulling me under, one thought pushed its way to the surface like an oily bubble and burst.

My life, my whole life…

My father was a Spider.

This book is for every woman who’s been beaten down, has got back up and said ‘this is not going to define my life’.

It’s for those of you who had the strength and courage to say ‘it was not ok’ and I won’t let it happen to anyone else.

And for those who aren’t there yet, just know you are strong enough; you can do it, and one day if you want to and when you’re ready, you will.

It takes enormous strength to endure and strength to fight back, I am in awe of each and every one of you.

Daughter of a Malaysian nuclear physicist father and an Australian doctor mother, Lauren Nicolle Taylor was expected to follow the science career path. And she did, for a while, completing a Health Science degree with Honors in obstetrics and gynecology. But there was always a niggling need to create which led to many artistic adventures.

When Lauren hit her thirties, she started throwing herself into artistic endeavors, but was not entirely satisfied.  The solution: Complete a massive renovation and sell their house so they could buy their dream block of land and build. After selling the house, buying the block and getting the plans ready, the couple discovered they had been misled and the block was undevelopable. This left her family of five homeless.

Taken in by Lauren’s parents, with no home to renovate and faced with a stressful problem with no solution, Lauren found herself drawn to the computer. She sat down and poured all of her emotions and pent up creative energy into writing The Woodlands.