{"id":6767,"date":"2015-07-01T18:12:38","date_gmt":"2015-07-02T00:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=6767"},"modified":"2015-07-01T18:12:38","modified_gmt":"2015-07-02T00:12:38","slug":"wall","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=6767","title":{"rendered":"Wall"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nikolaj Volgushev<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jerry is building a wall. He tells me, \u2018I\u2019m building a wall.\u2019<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t really understand.<\/p>\n

\u2018But Jerry,\u2019 I say. \u2018Jerry, we are software engineers. How come you are building a wall? How do you even find the time?\u2019<\/p>\n

Jerry sharpens a pencil. He is uncomfortable. \u2018Well, I\u2019m building it in my sleep,\u2019 he admits eventually, after the pencil is so sharp you could drive it right through a telephone book.<\/p>\n

\u2018So you\u2019re sleepbuilding a wall?\u2019 I clarify. \u2018That\u2019s interesting. Did you know I have a cousin who sleepwalks?\u2019<\/p>\n

Jerry snaps the pencil in half. He is upset. \u2018No. It\u2019s not like that. I\u2019m not sleepbuilding a wall. I\u2019m building a wall in my dreams.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Ah,\u2019 I say. I still don\u2019t really understand. I think about my cousin Bill. He sleepwalked right out of a window once. What a hoot.<\/p>\n

Jerry puts down the two halves of the pencil. He feels the need to explain.<\/p>\n

\u2018Every night, I go to bed and I fall asleep and dream that I\u2019m building a wall.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Ah!\u2019 I say. Now I understand. \u2018Dreams are weird, aren\u2019t they? I dreamt the other day I was an otter.\u2019<\/p>\n

Jerry sharpens another pencil.<\/p>\n

\u2018This is different. I keep dreaming about the wall, night after night. For over a week now. I\u2019ve been building this damn wall for over a week now.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Ah,\u2019 I say. I\u2019m intrigued.<\/p>\n

\u2018Well, are you making progress?\u2019 I venture.<\/p>\n

Jerry nods, testing the sharpness of the pencil with his fingertip. \u2018Yes, it\u2019s going all right.\u2019<\/p>\n

Jerry puts the pencil aside. \u2018The problem is, I have back pains and blisters now. From building the wall, you know?\u2019<\/p>\n

Jerry shows me his hands. They\u2019re raw and red and shaky.<\/p>\n

\u2018Yowza!\u2019 I exclaim.<\/p>\n

\u2018Yeah . . . It\u2019s hard work,\u2019 Jerry says and produces a phone book from a drawer. He picks it up and drives the pencil and the sharp half of the broken pencil right through. Jerry gets that way sometimes.<\/p>\n

I feel like I should cheer him up.<\/p>\n

\u2018Hey, Jerry,\u2019 I say. \u2018Do you want to explain to me again what a subroutine is? A motherboard? Encapsulation?\u2019<\/p>\n

That does the trick.<\/p>\n

Jerry doesn\u2019t come into work for a whole week. Sick days. The team is falling behind on the project. There are bug reports. All unit tests are failing. I smack a ruler on the table. No one listens.<\/p>\n

\u2018Where is Jerry?\u2019 a man wearing a red tie demands to know.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t like his tone. \u2018Jerry is building a wall,\u2019 I tell him. \u2018Jerry is building the wall of his dreams.\u2019<\/p>\n

The man turns the color of his tie. \u2018Have some grace,\u2019 he tells me. I turn back to my computer. Gosh darn. Another bug report.<\/p>\n

I meet Jerry for lunch. He is a different man now, not the Jerry from two weeks ago. His eyes are like wells, his hands are calloused, his movements sparse. His mere presence inspires awe.<\/p>\n

\u2018How are you, Jerry?\u2019 I ask, ordering clams.<\/p>\n

Jerry orders a shrimp dish, a salmon dish, a lobster dish, a tuna dish, a squid dish, also mussels. Jerry is insatiable.<\/p>\n

\u2018Are you still building the wall?\u2019 I dare to ask.<\/p>\n

Jerry swallows the lobster whole. He crunches on the shell.<\/p>\n

\u2018Well, what kind of wall is it? Are you using mortar and brick? Is it a cement wall? Are you wearing a hardhat? What is the purpose of the wall? Is the purpose of the wall to keep people in, or to keep people out? Is it merely decorative? Are you reconstructing the Berlin Wall as a social commentary? Do you stand upon the wall and look out into the sunrise at the end of the night? Will quality assurance need to stay up for days testing your wall once you\u2019re done building it?\u2019<\/p>\n

Jerry takes a swig of wine and wipes his mouth with the back of his enormous, calloused hand.<\/p>\n

\u2018Jerry, you must understand, these aren\u2019t just my questions. People around the office are curious, you see? They feel strongly that they have a right to know.\u2019<\/p>\n

I produce a legal pad with a list of questions I was asked to ask Jerry during lunch.<\/p>\n

Jerry takes the pad from me and answers them all.<\/p>\n

His answers are satisfactory.<\/p>\n

\u2018Thank you, Jerry. I appreciate you taking the time.\u2019<\/p>\n

Jerry finishes the mussels, leaving six clean plates on the table. He leans back into his chair and unbuckles his belt.<\/p>\n

\u2018One more thing I would like to know, if it\u2019s no trouble . . .\u2019 I try my luck, \u2018What is it like building the wall? Would you say it is a hardship? Do you scream out at night — Good God, I never asked for this — or is it more of a blessing, a liberation of the soul, are you filled with the overwhelming joy of creation?\u2019<\/p>\n

Jerry doesn\u2019t answer. He just sheds one gigantic, salty tear. It rolls down his cheek and lands on the floor noisily.<\/p>\n

\u2018Hey, Jerry,\u2019 I say in an attempt to undo the damage I have done. \u2018Do you want to explain to me again what a call stack is? RAM? Polymorphism?\u2019<\/p>\n

Jerry does.<\/p>\n

The next morning I get a call from Jerry\u2019s wife. She tells me Jerry won\u2019t wake up any more. She tells me she has assembled all the alarms around the house and that they\u2019re going off (she isn\u2019t lying, I can hear them in the background), that she has tried splashing Jerry with water, and punching him in the face, and whispering to him softly.<\/p>\n

\u2018Well, is he breathing?\u2019 I demand.<\/p>\n

\u2018He is snoring.\u2019 (Again, this is the truth, I can hear his giant breath over the sound of the alarms.)<\/p>\n

\u2018I will be right there,\u2019 I assure her, get in the car, and run a million red lights.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re all gathered around Jerry\u2019s bed. His wife is holding his hand in both of hers (it\u2019s so enormous, it won\u2019t fit otherwise). The window is open; there is a fresh alpine breeze. Some of the alarms are still going off periodically because with some clocks the mechanism of turning the alarm off is an enigma, even to us software engineers. Jerry is breathing heavily, making the room shake.<\/p>\n

Pedro, the janitor, walks in. He apologizes for being late and takes a seat next to the ladies from quality assurance.<\/p>\n

Someone demands that we discuss the semantics of the wall Jerry is building. \u2018I would like to know Jerry\u2019s intentions in building this wall. I would like to know the deep childhood trauma which caused him to do so. I would like to have it affirmed that Jerry is building the wall symbolically, to solidify his deep isolation from reality. Can we all agree that Jerry is building the wall because he is lost, because he is fearful of death, because the universe is a fleeting, cold creature that is immeasurable and yet collapsing further and further onto itself every perceived moment of time?\u2019<\/p>\n

Jerry\u2019s wife breaks into tears. We offer her tissues. \u2018Now, now,\u2019 we say. \u2018There, there.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018What do you think will happen once he\u2019s finished building the wall?\u2019 someone ventures eventually. Jerry\u2019s wife, just having calmed down, resumes sobbing again. We assure her that we didn\u2019t mean it that way.<\/p>\n

\u2018Surely he\u2019ll wake up,\u2019 I offer my opinion, though in my heart of hearts I am not convinced. In my heart of hearts there is fear and doubt and uncertainty.<\/p>\n

Jerry sneezes, then turns over onto his side. His shadow covers us all; the temperature drops. Jerry\u2019s wife returns with hot chocolate and blankets for everyone. We continue in our vigil.<\/p>\n

These days, whenever I pass a wall I imagine that Jerry built it. Especially those stone walls trailing off into the forest, moss-covered and derelict, dysfunctional at first glance.<\/p>\n

I wonder what the purpose of these walls is; I mean, look at them among the pines and shrubs and roots, what are these walls actually dividing?<\/p>\n

\u2018All forgotten spaces,\u2019 Jerry tells me from afar. \u2018They\u2019re dividing all forgotten spaces, don\u2019t you feel it?\u2019<\/p>\n

I tell him that I do, but really I don\u2019t. There\u2019s a certain nostalgia to this kind of lie, a bright, childish disappointment.<\/p>\n

Maybe one of these days I ought to build a wall myself, I think. Maybe.<\/p>\n

Nikolaj Volgushev<\/strong> was born in Goettingen, Germany, in 1991. Volgushev works in the medium of short fiction with a focus on the magic realist and absurdist genres. He obtained his B.S. in Computer Science at the University of Connecticut in 2013 and currently resides in Boston, Massachusetts. He is pursuing his PhD in Cybersecurity at Boston University. Volgushev draws influence from writers such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Haruki Murakami, and Donald Barthelme as well as the strange realms of software development and formal logics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nikolaj Volgushev Jerry is building a wall. He tells me, \u2018I\u2019m building a wall.\u2019 I don\u2019t really understand. \u2018But Jerry,\u2019 I say. \u2018Jerry, we are software engineers. How come you are building a wall? How do you even find the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":6762,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6767","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P15duy-1L9","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6767"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6775,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6767\/revisions\/6775"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}