Love from the Other Side
VILDE GANGSTØ DAVIDSEN (NORWAY)
He could feel the stony wall behind him as he sat down with his back against the wall. The letter felt rough between his fingers. He had been guarding his fixed route for hours already, and it was finally time for a break. The young man had already been guarding the wall for years, just like his dad and grandad before him. He had been 15 the day he first was stationed there, although he had known that was the destiny awaiting him ever since he was a little boy. It was seen as a blessing by most, a job that passed from father to son. But he saw no purpose in the wall at all.
The wall, a 10 meter tall monster built from bricks that separated Mexico from America, something it had been doing for a millennium. It had been built in the 21st century, and had made sure Mexicans and Americans had been completely isolated from each other ever since. The two ethnical groups never learnt anything about each other, nor got to ever communicate. At least that was what people thought.
He looked down at the envelope in his hand again. It was a plain envelope with only a heart drawn in the corner. They had to be discreet, if anyone else found it in the tiny hole between the bricks
in the wall, they couldn’t know who it belonged to. In the worst case it would lead to execution at the market place. All communication with the other side was strictly illegal.
He carefully opened the envelope and pulled out the paper inside. It was covered in her beautiful handwriting. He let his fingers follow the letters, thinking about the girl that had sat down to write it to him. It was only a few years into his duty that he had stumbled over the first letter in the wall. At the time he didn’t know what to do with it, but after some thinking he had written an answer. What first had started out as a little crime had become a big one as they started to develop a secret relationship. He was in love with a girl he had never met.
He started reading the letter, slowly, to catch up every word, to remember it as well as possible before he would have to burn it. It wasn’t until he came to the last line of the letter he had to stop for a second, to read it over again.
“I’ve heard that they’ve finally agreed to remove most of the wall. They’ll start already next week.”
The one line kept repeating itself in his head as he read it over and over again. The 1,000 years old wall was finally being removed?
He stood up quicker than ever before. He had to finish his shift, hopefully soon for the last time ever. The smile on his face kept growing for every step he took. He was finally going to meet his Juliet.