21 June 2026
The walls in my room at my flat are covered in Anaglypta Shelburne vinyl wallpaper. This is a catalog of markings/imperfections I can see on the south-facing wall from where I'm sitting.
A long (maybe two feet in length) and thin air pocket line snaking from halfway up the right of the wall down to the top of a stack of laundry on my floor. It actually looks just like a snake. A collapsed pocket of air, maybe six by three inches, that has cracked on top—it looks like an oyster shell beginning to open. Six subtle but visible perfectly straight vertical lines (looks like the individual panels that comprise the whole wall) spanning from ceiling to carpet. Three little blotches of what looks like dried blood, perhaps from past tenants killing mosquitos or other bugs or just getting blood on the walls somehow. Seven small holes from where people have put pins or screws in, two of which I am currently using to hang a piece of artwork (my father's sketch of a flint rock) and a bright red-bordered dollar-store mirror (the reflection is wonky from far away but accurate up close). Three more large air pockets creating a U-shape arcing up from the bottom left of the first air pocket line I mentioned—these ones are pretty flat, so they sort of disappear in lower light and I'm noticing them more now in the daylight. A long, irregular line of white paint running the length of the wall at the top near where it meets the ceiling that looks like it might be covering a messy sealing job that was done before I moved in. There's a similar line painted just above the door frame (which is embedded on the far left of the wall I'm looking at).