• Once there was a room, and in that room were people,

    The people had been in that room for as long as anyone among them could remember, and did not think much of it otherwise,

    It was a medium-sized room, big enough for them all,

    There was not joy, but there was not sorrow,

    There was only peace and mutuality,

    It was like that for what they perceived as an eternity, as they did not think much of time either,

    They did not think of their situation, or of what surrounded them,

    Until one day I am told, someone piped the question,

    It was a youngster, less experienced in the way of life the people of the mysterious room knew,

    And it was this youngster who looked at the world around him, and thought the thought,

    The thought that would send out every other thought, "What does the wall look like?" he asked,

    The wall that kept them in that room was always hidden by shadows, for there was no light to illuminate it,

    The wall had no door, no windows,

    It wa an empty blackness, an indistinguishable solid mass,

    "No one knows." replied the youngster's elders, for such a question had never been asked,

    "Oh." was all the youngster had to say, and his impressionable mind quickly forgot the query,

    At first this question meant nothing to everyone, surely it was only the babbling of an innocent child,

    The people pushed it out of their minds, but not completely it seemed,

    For many of them found the oh-so innocent question returning to their minds, each time a little more insistent,

    Again and again they tried to ignore the question, each time returning with more of a burning desire,

    The desire to know, which soon burned within every soul in the dark room,

    Another day came, and another person asked,

    "What do you think the wall looks like?" one asked his friend, and his friend thought,

    "Purple with dots." said he, "I think the wall may be purple with dots.", and went on with his day,

    The first one frowned, for he did not find purple to be a pleasant color,

    "Surely the wall can not be purple with dots," said he, "For the wall is what encompasses our world, and something that sold and constant could never be such an ugly color,"

    And he slept on it, dreaming of his own possibility,

    The next morning the one declared to his friend, "Wrong you are, for I believe the wall to be green with triangles,"

    His friend was not shocked nor amused at the thought of the wall being green, for he did not truly care too much about the unknown color of the wall,

    But still he found himself a bit irked at this statement, which so bluntly shoved aside his own opinion like it mattered not,

    "What makes you so sure the wall is green with triangles?" said the friend, "You have never seen the wall."

    "Green is a pleasant color whereas purple is not," said the friend simply, "That is my reason."

    "But what makes your reason much better than mine?" argued the friend, "I find green to be ghastly and purple to be lavish."

    With that, the two friends put aside their argument and said nothing of it again,

    However this was not the end of the debate, as many others began to take almost a delight in imagining their own dream of what the wall could appear like,

    "The wall must have polka-dots!" would say one person one day, "Stripes must be what the wall displays!" said another person another day,

    Like a wildfire it grew, and the one innocent query quickly became a manic obsession for the people of the dark room,

    Time wore on, the guesses grew more elaborate,

    Whether it be swirls or spirals, circles or squares,

    Diamonds or hearts, cloves or spades,

    One or two colors, maybe five or five hundred,

    Perhaps the wall displayed completely new colors that none of them could currently imagine, as someone once proposed,

    Everyone had an opinion on what the wall truly looked like, the explanations varied,

    Some held the same opinions as their loved ones, others were completely independent in their thoughts,

    But no matter what anyone said the darkness never lifted, the wall stayed concealed behind the shadows,

    No one was ever proven right, no one was ever proven wrong,

    All held steadfast in their opinions, no one could be moved,

    Many arguments broke out, all were prepared to defend their answer,

    And so it was like this for a time, the people who fought over the wall they could never see,

    Then there came a man who watched his fellow people of the dark room, saw them squabble about that which they could never see or prove,

    It was who he came across an idea as revolutionary as the question that had started this mess, "What if we could find out what the wall truly does look like?",

    And everyone stopped mid-sentence, turning their heads to the lone man,

    There was a silence, followed by everyone laughing in unison,

    "Such a mad thought! Such a mad thought!" they all shouted, "No one can ever truly see the wall!"

    "Why not?" countered the man, "Trying to get to the bottom of this question is far better than sitting around and fighting about it!",

    But still no one listened, as the man had quickly been dismissed as madman for his idea,

    Everyone continued with their average lives, but not the bold man who had proposed his question,

    He was determined to know the truth, and so he set out to build a machine,

    A machine that no one had ever dreamed of or imagined before, a brilliant invention that would change their world,

    A machine of illumination, at last they would see the wall for what it was,

    "And at last we may live in peace knowing the answer to our common question," he thought fondly, this was a beautiful world to him,

    Many a-time passed on by, as the man searched and searched for anything that would contribute to his machine,

    It was slow and wore down on his nerves, but he felt himself grow a little wiser with each new piece he found,

    His people looked on as he preformed this seeminly impossible task, many of them jeered and taunted him,

    But bigger and more complete-looking the machine became, the more the taunters turned to worriers,

    Finally there came the time where the machine needed only one final piece to be finished, and the wall would be revealed to all,

    The man was ecstatic, many of the people were not,

    They approached him one day while the man was tuning his fantastic machine, they asked why he gave himself such trouble,

    "I want to see the wall," said the man, "Just like all of you.",

    "But why? Everyone knows that the wall is a salmon-pink decorated with black crosses." said a person, "NO! It is BLUE with RED SCRIBBLES!" cried another,

    And they all began yet another argument right there in front of the machine, and the inventor man covered his ears in annoyance,

    "THIS is why I'm making this machine!" he shouted over them, "I am sick of your constant fighting! Everyone has become a fool, claiming to know something they do not!"

    "Fools?" cried everyone, "We are not fools!",

    "No, but you act like it!" argued the inventor, "One man says indigo, another say peach, how is anyone to believe any of you when NONE OF YOU have seen the wall?",

    "Because I know!" said all the people at once with a glare or two to their neighbors, "You can not sway my belief!"

    "Whatever." sighed the inventor, "Believe what you want, but I shall be the one to reveal the truth. The truth! I will not be swayed by equal guesses, but only by proof!"

    And with that the inventor turned his back coldly to his fellow people of the dark room, he would no longer tolerate their idiot preaching,

    His fellow people were angry with the inventor man, though not anymore angry they would be with anyone else who disagreed with them about the wall,

    Anxious they were however, as it was quite clear that his illumination machine was almost complete,

    What were they to expect if the invention worked, and the wall was shown for what it was,

    Even the stubbornist in their beliefs felt a sinking feeling in their hearts, concerned over what the truth would be,

    "What is my beautiful image of the wall is wrong?" whimpered one, "What is I am way off as well?" cried another,

    The truth is that they were scared, they were scared of finally seeing something that had been invisible for as long as they had known,

    One among them thought long and hard about this whole situation, then raised his head and proclaimed, "The wall must not be meant to be seen!"

    Nobody understood, he explained,

    "The wall has been hidden in darkness for all of eternity, it is the only way things have ever been, and the only way things should ever be!", there was agreement,

    So with that people marched back to the inventor, surely this new argument would pursuade him to stop building this strange and unnatural machine,

    But they only succeeded in doing the exact opposite, the inventor only grew even more frustrated with his friends and neighbors,

    "Are you all really that scared to know the truth?" he demanded of them, "This has nothing to do with what is right, you are all just terrified of being wrong."

    "No!" said a woman, "If the wall was truly meant to be seen, then why would it be covered in darkness?"

    "Who says that it is dark for a reason?" asked the inventor, "Have you ever thought it just happened to be that way? Just as everything else just so happens?"

    "Something bad might happen!" cried another person, who along with the crowd was growing in paranoia,

    The inventor did his best to calm his nerves, "How could something bad happen? There is no proof of that, it is only a blank mass, it has never hurt us before."

    Still the crowd argued and protested, but the inventor only pulled out the last piece of the machine,

    "See this? This will put an end to all our problems.", and he reached over to install it,

    It was then that another person ran up and tackle the inventor, screaming and struggling,

    Dagger came down on heart, and the inventor's blood pooled cold,

    Everyone stared, and one by one began to scream,

    For murder had never been commited here among the people of the dark room before, and everyone was in horror,

    Even the man's murdered was in horror, but quick was he to defend himself,

    "He deserved it!" he shouted it, "He would have brought into our world something not meant to be seen!"

    No one was sure of this, the inventor had not been a bad man,

    But they were shaken and disturbed, and they needed comfort,

    So everyone among the people of the dark room accepted this explanation, that the inventor had been a madman,

    Madman, blasphamer,

    They told themselves this again and again, the illumination machine collected dust,

    Everyone went back to trying to ignore what could have been, ignored the rash death of the one who had searched for an answer,

    And so everyone continued to ask the question of the wall could possibly be like, all while foolishly denying themselves the oppotunity to answer their questions,

    Nobody remembers how much time passed when nobody touched the machine, all say it felt like an eternity,

    And questions went on unanswered, though it helped them not,

    People were bitter, as no one bothered to try and understand each other anymore,

    You were either with me in my belief or you were an outsider, so were their thoughts,

    And though none admitted it, it wore on each and every one of their hearts,

    And so it grew cold in the room of darkness, with no acceptance of each other all based on something they refused to put an end to,

    Till one fateful day, the eyes of the people of the dark room rested upon the illumination machine once again,

    And they didn't care anymore, not about what might happen,

    Not about why it was dark, or what if,

    They were only sick of the cold, the coldness of denying each other,

    And so did everyone gather to the machine after all this time in blackness, and respectfully lifted the last piece from the long-rotted hand of the inventor,

    All breath was held as the last piece was screwed in, everyone squeezed each other's hands nervously,

    Minds raced as the machine began to whir, they would finally see the wall,

    The wall that encompassed their world, the wall that was all they knew,

    The wall that had set neighbor against neighbor, wife against husband,

    Brother against sister, friend against friend,

    The wall that's design they had been so obsessed with, that it had driven them to kill,

    And even after all that, everyone in the dark room still felt in their hearts that they would finally be proven right,

    What would the wall be?, Would it be green and magenta with yellow dashes?,

    Or perhaps aquamarine with rainbow twinkles all over, or maybe each side would have it's own scheme and design,

    Pink, blue, green, hearts, stripes, dots, splatters, swirls, diamonds, squares, circles, triangles, everything you could possibly put on a wall flew through their minds,

    The all the lights turned on, and everyone gasped,

    For lo and behold, the wall was completely blank.