Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25170312-20180208151323

I had this job delivering hot meals to the elderly. Some folks were wheelchair bound, some had a bit of dementia, some had their licences take away or at least knew they shouldn't be driving. I'd usually stay and chat for a bit, which was mostly expected. The company's almost as important as the food. One woman in particular I got to know pretty well.

Mrs. Burningham was a delight. She had this adorable little smile that would light up a room, as they say. A petite thing she was; must have been less than five feet tall. She was one of those little old ladies you just want to scoop up and put in your back pocket.

My favorite thing about Mrs. Burningham was the way she'd tell a story. She knew how to grab your attention and pique your curiosity—her inflection, her lack of hesitation, the passion she felt for the life she lived. She'd weave tales of grand romance, family struggles, women's suffrage. I'm sure a lot of it wasn't true considering her slight dementia, but the way she spoke could make anything seem possible. And her voice, so delicate and soothing. I thought nothing could avert my attention from those daily monologues. That is, until I saw that tear in the wallpaper.

Her home was oddly pristine. I couldn't understand how an 85 year old woman kept everything so perfect. It was more than just clean and neat. Nothing was damaged or worn or faded. So then why? Why was there a tear in the wallpaper? Just a little tear about an inch long and a centimeter wide, begging to be yanked by some naughty, careless child.

I'm not sure how it got there or when. It could have appeared sometime since I started delivering meals, or maybe it was there all along. Either way, it bothered me...a lot. If someone was keeping her house all neat and tidy, why couldn't they redo the wallpaper? Was it not important? Why bother with the upkeep if you're not going to do a proper job? The logic seems flawed now but at the time I was too obsessed to realize how unreasonable it sounded. So the wallpaper was ripped. Big deal, right?

Weeks went by since I'd noticed the tear, and it was apparent that no one was going to fix it. None of my business, that's what it was, but I couldn't stop fixating. Mrs. Burningham would be deep into one of her elaborate tales and I would just stare...stare at the tear.

"What is it, dear?" she asked me one day. "What are you looking at?"

"That," I said flatly, pointing to the wall behind her. She backed up her wheelchair and turned.

"Yes, what is it?"

"That rip. It's been bugging me. Why don't you get it fixed?"

"Hmm..." She wheeled a little closer to the wall and squinted. "I'm sorry, dear. My eyes aren't so good. I'm lucky I recognize who's coming through the door. Though, I always know it's you by the wonderful aromas."

Someone had to be doing the upkeep on the place but when I asked her about it she said, "Oh, I don't know, dear. Things are getting a little hazy these days."

I got sick of looking at the damned thing so I did a little redecorating. There was this ugly horse painting in the hallway that I figured I could use to cover it up.

"What are you doing with that, dear?" asked Mrs. Burningham. I convinced her the horse was lonely out in the hallway. She giggled and said it was a fine idea. It seemed like the perfect solution, except that sometime during my off day, the painting disappeared. I asked what happened to it. "What happened to what, dear?" she replied.

Not only was the painting gone, but the rip had grown a bit larger. An overwhelming desire came over me, and I wanted so badly to just grab and pull, but I figured Mrs. B. would have a heart attack. I think we've all been there before. You see a dangling thread or a hair out of place and you just want to yank it, right? I don't feel I'm unique in that respect. There's a reason people love to rip those tags off mattresses. It just feels good. Or maybe it's like OCD or something. I bet most people who saw that little piece just reaching out for someone to liberate it wouldn't have been able to resist as long as I did.

I tried other ways to cover it up, like moving a bookshelf in front of it. Someone moved it back. I figured I should cut it out or whoever it was would come give me a tongue lashing. Mrs. B. agreed to sit and talk with me in a different room. That went well at first, until I started hearing these faint sounds, like slowly tearing a sheet of paper, coming from just within earshot. I'd go check the living room and find nothing had changed.

"I think you're getting tired of my stories, dear," Mrs. B. would say. More like I was going nuts.

"Not a chance," I'd assure her. But something had to be done or that insignificant blemish on the wall was going to be the end of my sanity. I tried to switch routes with someone but no one wanted to switch, and my boss was like, "Well, if you don't want to do it, I can hire someone who can." I explained about the wallpaper driving me crazy and he practically fired me on the spot.

Then one day when I went over there, Mrs. Burningham was still in bed. She said she was tired, so I helped her eat. After that, she fell asleep. Suddenly, I felt really strange being in her house, like I was there all alone. As I was on my way out, I turned around and looked at the tear in the wallpaper. This was my chance.

I carefully opened every drawer I could find until I discovered a pair of scissors. It was time to end this, once and for all. Serenity was just a quick snip away. But you know, it was hard to get the scissors flush to the wall in such a way that I could cut off the whole piece. There were still these two little slits left, just a few millimeters each. All I could do was try and grip one side with my fingernails and peel it just a tad, enough to guide it an inch over and away, making a clean tear. But things didn't go the way I'd intended.

What started as a minor imperfection had become a glaring injury. There was no way Mrs. Burningham wouldn't notice something that obvious, even with her sub par vision. I tried to do the same thing again, to make a clean tear, resulting in a second failure.

"Shit," I whispered. There was no going back now. I had to finish what I'd started. And boy, did it feel good. Gently, I tugged at the protrusion. The idea was to minimize the damage, but as I kept going it became impossible to stop. It was just too exhilarating.

I yanked and yanked as the torn section ribboned and snaked around, refusing to detach from the wall like it was holding on for dear life. Up and down and around it went. Over and around the window trim, the doorways, behind the furniture. I needed to continually advance my grip due to the ever increasing slack. It was like unraveling the largest sweater ever knitted, or winning at tug of war. When it was all over, I couldn't believe what I'd done.

Fired. That's what I was going to be. I'd be the first employee to get canned for vandalizing someone's house. If I had stopped to think then I would have gotten rid of the evidence, but instead I just freaked out and bolted.

I'd have to face the music eventually, so the next day after work I went to my boss to confess. There were a couple police cars out front and I knew I'd have a lot of explaining to do. As soon as I got inside, everyone turned and looked at me like I had seven heads. As I approached my boss' desk, two officers grabbed me.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to do it! It just happened and then I couldn't stop! I just couldn't stop tearing! I'll pay for it, I promise! Just please don't fire me!"

"Oh, you'll pay alright," remarked one of the cops as he put me in handcuffs.

"What the hell's going on?" I demanded to know. "I'm being arrested? Over wallpaper?!"

Everyone paused for a moment, trading confused glances. I was later informed that there was never any wallpaper in Mrs. Burningham's living room. I was also told she was dead.

Every inch of skin had been torn from her body. 