When the boy turned seven, his parents wallpapered his bedroom with a colorful design they'd found on sale at the children's shop. "We thought it would brighten your room up a bit," they said. The wallpaper was fairy-tale themed, festooned with scenes from familiar stories several years too young for the boy, but he smiled and told them he liked it. There was some pleasure, the boy was just starting to learn, in telling small lies to one's parents.
   
At night, though, the boy found he could not sleep. The new wallpaper gave off a whiff of glue, and seemed to glow, faintly, even after the boy's parents had turned off his light. Worse, the boy found he could not stop looking at the fairy tale scene closest to his head. It was an image from "The Elves and the Shoemaker" showing the elves sneaking into the shoemaker's shop, but the artist had drawn the elves already wearing the clothes the shoemaker's wife gives them at the end of the story, which didn't seem right. That was the whole point of the story, the boy thought. Once the elves got the clothes, the story was over. Every night the boy lay awake, staring at the elves in their incorrect clothes, his room reeking of glue. Why hadn't anyone noticed the error?
   
One night, the boy's parents peeked their heads into the boy's room and asked him why he was still awake.
     
"There's something wrong with this wallpaper," the boy said.
   
"Wrong?" the parents said.
   
"Come look," the boy said. "I'll show you."
   
The boy showed them.
   
His parents smiled. They gave one another looks the boy knew meant that they thought his concerns were childish. "Well," they said, "there's just one thing to do. We have to write a letter to the wallpaper people."
   
The next morning, his parents set the boy up at the kitchen table with a piece of paper, pencil, and an envelope already addressed to The Wallpaper People, in his mother's careful script.
   
"What should I write?" the boy asked.
   
"Tell them about the mistake," his mother said, then smiled at the boy's father.
   
So the boy told the wallpaper people about the mistake. He told them how the elves got the clothes at the end of the story, not the beginning. How the wallpaper image didn't really make sense. The boy wrote all of this in his terrible, embarrassing handwriting. When he was finished, his parents helped him fold up the letter and seal it in the envelope. Then they watched from the front door as he walked to the mailbox and placed the letter inside.
   
"Don't forget to put the flag up," his parents said.
   
The envelope didn't even have an address on it, but the boy put the flag up anyway.


Weeks passed.

Months.

Seasons came and went.

One rainy night, the boy heard someone knocking at the front door. Loud. The door rattled within the frame.

"Open up!" a voice boomed.

Through the window, the boy could see lightning arcing across the sky.

"We got your letter!" the voice said.

The boy's father told the boy and the mother to stand back, then walked to the door and said, "Who's there?"

"Who's there?" the voice said, then laughed a terrifying laugh. "I said we got your letter. Who do you think it is? It's us, the Wallpaper People."

The father opened the door, which caught against the security chain.

"Oh, real nice," the voice said. "Chains the door, like we're criminals."

On the doorstep stood the oldest couple the boy had ever seen. A man and a woman with thin white hair and stooped posture. The man wore a rumpled hat. The woman had her face buried in the man's chest; her shoulders shook from crying.

"You see how she gets?" the man said. "You see? She takes it personally. Always has. Me, you can say whatever you want to me, I don't care." The man's voice caught. "But my wife, she's sensitive, right? She says, 'Oh, I knew I shouldn't have drawn it that way,' or, 'Oh, I knew I should have taken more time,' or, 'Oh, I knew I should have checked the story.' She gets all depressed. And I say, 'Don't worry, sweetie, you're still the best.' But she won't listen. Just stays in her room, crying." The man reached into his pocket and produced the boy's letter. "All because of goddamn letters like these!" He tore the letter in half. "Who's going to apologize to my wife? That's what I'd like to know." He threw the letter to the ground. "Who?"

And that's when the boy realized that everyone, the old woman included, had turned to face him.



.

Anthony Varallo's most recent book is THE LINES, a novel. He lives in Charleston, South Carolina.

Read his postcard.

Detail of illustration on main page by Boris Artzybasheff, from the Machinalia section of AS I SEE (1954).

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