walls

'I'm gonna sleep in the kitchen', he said. 'From now on I'll lay myself on the black&white tiles'. I was not surprised, for months I had been expecting these words. I clearly remember when it all started. It was on a cold dark Tuesday night in late autumn. He was reading in the old armchair, I was peeling chestnuts in the Knowle sofa, there was a big fire between us. 'We have to break down that wall', he stated. 'It has disturbed me since we moved in, there are too many small rooms in this appartment'. I looked at him with surprise, I had always thought that escaping into narrow spaces was his second nature. He could sit at only one meter distance from me for a whole day, but there were always bricks between us. Next day he called his buddie, and for hours they put all their force into taking down that wall, I could only see their backs. He had confined me to the chestnuts and the sofa. Slowly every object got covered with fine dust, even I looked as if crusted with snow. I turned into a statue, present but superfluous. For weeks the knocking and hammering continued, until it pulsed simultaneously with my blood stream. One morning I woke up early, the house was silent and the bed next to me empty. In my nightie I softly tiptoed to the kitchen and there it was: a jewel in high gloss crema and American walnut, gracefully framed in the wall protrusion. Its mere beauty blinded me. At that moment I knew it was over. That same night he moved to the kitchen floor.