Unzipped and Undone

Pink Floyd's The Wall frames this story of psychic death and rebirth in the form a chapter titles and lyrics quotes. It also underscores the themes of emotional isolation and modern fragmentation. Seventeen-year old Kora Kavanaugh meets thirty-eight year-old Dennis Duquette at Alcoholics Anonymous. Dennis is the father figure she's been missing all her life, but the friendship they develop eventually turns into a sexual relationship. As Dennis unzips Kora's pants, she realized that it is her heart that is exposed and that it could very well be the undoing of her. The question becomes is it love or are they just trying to be the impossible dream for one another. Is their affair pornographic or is profound? Kora never gets a chance to answer that question, because Dennis breaks it off with her. Both Kora and Dennis end up in a downward spiral back into drinking and drugs. Kora, who narrates the story, finds herself searching for love in the all wrong places. She is lonely and looking connect to someone, but all she finds are walls-her own and the ones put up by subsequent men she gets involved with. As she finds herself waiting for the worms, she has an epiphany and turns her life around. In the security of a loving relationship, Kora is finally able to come to grips with the verbal abuse she suffered at the end of her relationship with Dennis and finally understand what drove them apart. Forgiveness comes years later, proving it is never to late to say your sorry and never too late to heal old wounds. It is a sad story, but it is also uplifting because it shows that compassion is not only possible, but also necessary.