A curious hole and a pretty compliment

The first wall had a hole in it, a dark, almost perfectly circular opening covered by a metal grid. It looked less like damage than an attempt to keep something inside. Around it, the plaster had peeled away in long, white strips, hanging down like the skin of something that had tried to climb out and changed its mind. Across the street, someone had written YOU LOOK PRETTY on another wall, beneath it a small smiling face. I wondered whether the message was meant for whatever lived behind the hole. Perhaps it was a neighbourly gesture. Perhaps the thing inside had been waiting for a compliment. The two walls seemed to belong to the same strange conversation, conducted across the street in a language of holes, scars and childish declarations. I imagined the creature behind the grid reading the words, slowly, with one enormous eye. It had been trapped there for years, perhaps centuries, and had forgotten what a face looked like. The smiley face offered a useful reference. For a moment, I thought I saw the plaster beneath the message begin to swell, as if the wall were blushing. Then a small piece broke away and fell to the pavement. Nobody came to investigate. The creature remained behind its little cage, and the message remained outside, patiently waiting for a reply. I crossed the street. There was something familiar about the expression on the little face, though I couldn’t quite place it. I looked back at the hole. From where I stood, the grid seemed to form a smile.