Stuck On The Wall
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Sophie Holliday, Grade 8, St Joseph's Catholic College
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Short Story
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2017
Excellence Award in the 'Spread The Word 2017' competition
The face watched. Watched as the girl walked straight into the wolves trap. Such a sorry piece of meat, it thought. Such a pretty face… it drooled from its limply hung hook. A hook that had rusted over the years it had been left hanging there, waiting, watching, for the next victim. It had once had a face like that too, a beautiful golden lot of hair, and long, daring lashes. But as the pretty piece of meat now….she had the same foolish instinct of curiosity that had left her stuck here. But the face mentally licked her crayon-drawn lips, awaiting the return of the victim before her.
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The room was dark. Dark like the sky marking the night of the moonless. The carpet smelt like carnauba wax and the air was mucid. So dark. But my curiosity pulled me forward.
In the corner of the room sat a girl, in a small desk. There was no more furniture in the room. Just the desk. Just the girl, and her little box of crayons. No windows meant no light, so long shadows cast into empty corners, though nothing was there to cast them.
I walked forward. The girl was drawing. Always drawing, as if the crayons never faded into nothing. Her face was buried in the dark, her hands moving swiftly across the page.
On the wall were drawings, drawings, drawings. The walls were covered with them. They were all drawings of people’s faces. Faces. Faces. Faces that looked and stared at you as their crusty crayon skin stuck fast to the wall.
The girl did not look up. What was she drawing?
I crept forward. Something about the room reminded me of something. Faces looked at me from settled places on the wall. I looked at the page. The girl drew a nose, small and petite, she drew a mouth, full and pink, she drew hair, gold and curly, and she drew the eyes.
With horror I realised it was my face. The hair, the eyes, the mouth, the freckles, the everything. The girl hadn’t even looked up at me to know what I looked like, but here I was, a perfect reflection on a piece of paper.
A swirling feeling.
A facial pain.
And I was stuck
On the wall again.