Okay so i did this story for school. Basically we got told that we had to create a story based on a story by Peter Carey from "collected stories". So it would be great if you have read these stories. If not doesn't matter. Basically i got an A and although i'm very happy with that i just want to know what was wrong with it or what it lacked. Thanks.
They came to destroy the wall. No one can, to this day remember what it was we did to offend them. Dyer, the butcher remembers a day where the children had played in the streets while the tall Chinese men were around, or on another occasion where he had talked with my father about them in a gossip-like manner. One day I went to the white wall which overshadows the town with its enormity, and peered up at it for nearly an hour. But I’m sure they didn’t see me.
Whatever did happen, we slighted them terribly in some way. I remember it to be about a week after our coming to existence that Mr. Gleason left and didn’t come back. That was when the tall Chinese men came back and started smashing down the wall. It may be that they always intended to destroy the wall however I’m sure I saw a fierce anger in their eyes. The tall Chinese frightened us but it was not the first time they had come. My father remembers a time where he had been visiting George’s new lawn mower. My father owns a petrol station but in his time off he invents strange objects on ripped pieces of paper. Seeing something as sophisticated as a ride-on lawn mower was enough to impress most of us in the town, but my father appreciated the true beauty of what he called a mechanical wonder. It was on his second visit to see the lawn mower that the Chinese first came. He had of course seen a tall person before in the shape of Gleason but to see such a large group of tall people caused the whole town to stop and stare at the newcomers. George came out of his small fish and chip shop and Dyer came out of the butcher’s and people lined the main street in the way they do for the yearly parade, to watch the continuation of the wall. Often Gleason would come and remind us to stay very still when the Chinese came. We each had positions to go to; this was our chance of survival. The tall Chinese came for two days to destroy the wall. Gleason was gone; we didn’t mourn but simply thought ‘Gleason’ and started worrying about the destruction of the wall. None of us knew what the Chinese would do when they finished destroying the wall. Often Dyer gets drunk and tells scary stories to the children and anyone else who cares to listen. His stories at that time involved a lot of Chinese murderers.
For years we watched films on our tiny TV sets and dreamed about the outside world. For our town and the wall surrounding it, my father says, we have nothing but contempt.
The tall Chinese worked diligently dismantling the wall layer by layer until we could see something on the outside. It was impossible to see what it was, but there was definitely something there.
We stood in silence, not moving an inch as we had been ordered by Gleason. A lady who we recognised as Mrs Gleason stood defiantly with her back towards us. Behind her was the most incredible thing I had ever seen in my life. There was a large group of townspeople staring open-mouthed in very much the same way we stared at them. At first I didn’t recognise it. I stood open-mouthed, looking past the people and breathing in the beauty of the outside world. Then I realised the surrounding hills and everything we could see was an exact replica of our town. I saw Dyer point out to my father that even the old tyre on the ground was there.
I think everyone in the town was overcome by a simple joy. It seemed improper to feel so uplifted and happy. I looked at my father at his pose by the lawnmower and I could see such joy on his face that I knew he must have felt the same way. Later he told me that he believed the Chinese had destroyed the wall just to let us appreciate this beauty but that they couldn’t have controlled what happened afterwards. I would like to believe that.
We had been so overwhelmed with the town that we hadn’t looked properly at the tall people staring at us. To be honest I think I speak for a few of us when I say that I had been too scared to look them in the eye. When we did look up we noticed something even more remarkable. The people looked exactly like us. ‘Look’ I whispered to Mr Dyer, ‘There you are’. The resemblance wasn’t perfect but it was him and nobody else in the world. The tall people seemed to notice us just shortly after we had noticed them. They came over and started pointing to us and finding the smaller versions of themselves. They peered in our windows and pulled off our roofs while Mrs Gleason slipped silently away.
I confess that it was the tall version of me who pulled off the roof from Cavanagh’s house. So I was the first of us to see Mrs Cavanagh in bed with the much younger Cragie Evans. I stared in shock at the two of them who obviously hadn’t got to their positions. When I finally had accepted the situation I felt such deep loathing and denial towards the taller me. He stood there staring at them both, dumbfounded, holding the roof up. Thankfully the taller Phonsey Joy came to take the roof away from me and place it back on the house. By then everyone had seen what I had and word spread quickly through the town.
Then we all stared at them in fear, if they had the power to remove our roofs and uncover the town’s greatest secrets what else might they be capable of?
Soon enough they left in silence, and very quietly we all relaxed out of our positions, although I’m sure most of us didn’t really relax. I noticed Mrs Cavanagh and Cragie Evans did not leave the house. The tall people didn’t return for a few days. Those who had been in their houses at the time came to ask me what had happened. I told the story so many times that it became over rehearsed, the words lost their meaning. I no longer greeted them with enthusiasm and excitement for being able to recount the story for I knew they would be disappointed. They had heard it all before.
We held a town meeting to discuss the idea of running away. It’s a shame the few of us didn’t before my father found out. He arrived on his push bike and reassured the town that we should stay where we were. He said we have treated the town badly in our mind. We have used the little valley as nothing more than a stopping place. We have been too busy dreaming about the outside world and reading about it in local newspapers to really appreciate what we had.
The town was reassured more by the fear that if left we would have nowhere to go, rather than my father’s speech about respect for the town. We agreed to stay.
We heard the crunch of gravel underneath the tall people’s feet and we returned to our positions, Cragie Evans and Mrs Cavanagh going to their newly appointed positions.
To our shock it wasn’t the town members we had seen before but the minister for tourism in his sleek black suit. He started removing the roofs off all the houses until he found what he was looking for. He picked up Cragie Evans and Mrs Cavanagh in their awkward pose and left with them in his hand his feet crunching the gravel in a way that sounded like he was crunching on tiny little bones.
We tried to continue our normal lives, the shops reopened and we went back to work but it didn’t distract us from the fear we felt.
***
In six months we saw new people coming and we stopped our lives once again. They started arriving every day in buses. They would come to the top of bald hill to take photos of us and pose against our little town. We waited until night until we could relax again and most of us felt relieved that it was only tourists. Over a few days we felt famous, we got to meet the people from the outside world, the people of our dreams.
However we’re pretty sick of it now. When the tourists leave we go home, eat our dinner and go to bed. We get up the next morning to be prodded and poked and blinded with huge camera flashes. I look over to my father at his pose by the lawnmower. The warmth of his face is gone and I know he must feel the same way. I remember my dreams of the outside world and realise just how foolish they were.
