The Estate

***This is a short story i had to write for my WC2 class in college. The assignment was to rewrite "The Yellow Wallpaper" from a different perspective. So this is what came to be...

The Estate
– written Jeremy D. Bemis from outside of the box of
“The Yellow wall Paper”
by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. 1899

I have stood for a great many years and am tall, proud, and very old. There are few others within sight of my estate, yet within my solitude the sheep come and go. Rarely are there any worth taking note of. The simple beasts that roam throughout my grand halls and dark rooms all think mightily of themselves, yet they fail to realize that I shall out last them for ages to come.
There have been a few that have been worth remembering however. An old man who used to take great care in painting my shudders and siding, and the way he would sacrifice his “proud stature,” to dirty his hands in my gardens. He was the most humble, yet noble of them all.
I do miss him.
Of course!! I mustn’t forget the kind Miss Farling… oh the smells she would create with her baking. The smell of freshly baked bread and sweet cakes of all kinds would wash over my walls and fill every room with their rich textured airs. They would engulf the inside of my existence until that was all there was nothing left but a fluffy bakers cloud. I miss her something fierce.
My, oh my, such distant memories… They lurk like phantoms in my halls, resonating off the angles of walls and seemingly jumping out of corners.

The one creature I remember most though was an oddity among the rest. Oh… do I remember her greatly I say. I most certainly do. My how the others of the flock did whisper such disgusting words. Words that left a bad taste to linger, words that smelled of must and mold, words that scratched and hurt like termites!! I grew to hate the rest of that flock and only wished to wrap myself around this rare gem and keep her safe. She was the kindest of souls from beginning to end.
I do not miss her.
She came to me as a black sheep and was herded into my most dismal of rooms by the wolf of the flock. The wolf would stay with her on occasion, yet I did not like how he seemed to look down at her from his high mount. The other sheep would keep her at a distance yet always kept a watchful eye. She was a special gem and beautiful to say the least. The poor mammal hated where they left her and fought against it in her own way. She would spend hours upon hours crouching and hiding with my room. I knew she hated it. She even told me why on many of occasions. It was the wall paper. It hurt her senses and skewed her reality. The truth is I even disliked it myself. That paper felt like a stain within my grandeur. So you see, I could relate. How they could isolate someone so innocent and sweet within the clutches of such a hideous place I’ll never know, but they did. As a result I grew to hate the sheep and the wolves for it. They turned there noses up towards her and told her to shed her colors and conform to their standards or else they would send her away. Yet she fought back in her own way.
I do not miss her.
The longer she stayed with me the more of herself they said she was losing, yet in reality it was they who were losing her. They were losing her to me. For, she never did leave. She still resides with me within my walls of that battered room. She wanders the gardens and the lanes outside of every window. She crawls and creeps behind every wall. She gave herself to me in the end to get away and be safe. So I do not miss her. I do not miss her at all. She is with me now and I keep her safe within my warm and comforting walls.
They day came when they took what was left of her away and I’ll never forget their reaction. The wolf fell over in shock and her empty self just kept crawling around him. They’ll never know that she gave herself to me and that I now keep her safe within my walls. She destroyed that yellow wall paper and cleansed those walls. That room is now tolerable, yet still empty. I miss her shell sometimes, but her true self is still within me, keeping my rooms and halls alive.
I will never miss her.