#wainscoting

unique and original

They're these little pale guys with big red eyes. You could probably hold a couple of them in your hands at once. You accidently killed one and you felt bad about it for awhile, you even gave them back the body, you couldn't bare the guilt.

As time goes on they build a little city in your walls. There must be thousands of them now, living their own little lives. They watch them getting breadcrumbs or farming mold in the mornings, and watch them sometimes sing little songs or do little rituals.

They come to view you as sort of a folk hero after some time. Like a giant that protects them. When you take your cat away from their settlement so she won't eat them, or when you fix something for them, or give them suger cubes, they must see these as great heroic acts. When you're out for a few hours a few of their generations pass, and you must fade into legned for then, until one day this great benevolent giant they didn't even know the reality of comes back to them.

Sometimes they make things for you. You know they have a statue for you at least. But they try to make you little emblems and jewelry. It's not very good, but they're definitely happy that you accepted their gifts. And sometimes when you have a hard day at work, or something goes wrong for you, it's nice to have those little guys there for you, even if you can't really talk to them or get to know them or anything.

One day your landlord finds out about these guys. He says he has to get rid of them. If you don't let them he'll get rid of you too. They want to hire an exterminators by Monday, they'll poison their crops, and let them slowly die off or starve, and gas out any survivors if they have to.

You realize they can't live here anymore. So you try to tell them. To tell them they have to move, that something is going to kill them all if they stay within the world they know. But they don't understand, you can make them afraid but you can't make them understand.

Two days before the exterminators come you realize what you have to do, what you know will make them leave. You look at their city, and you start destroying it. They feel betrayed, they thought you would always be there to protect them. It's like how the Greeks would see Hercules destroying Athens, or how the Britaish would see king Arthur leading armies agaisnt them. They think you were sent by God, as a manifestation of his anger. They're so much smaller then you, they didn't even think you betrayed them, they thought they betrayed you. You wish you could tell them, that this is your final act of protection.

An illustration of a transitional powder room design with multicolored tiles, an undermount sink, and brown walls.