The wall without a mural

Text: an original contemporary neighbourhood-essay-style practice extract.

The council invited us to choose a mural for the wall beside the playground. Four designs arrived, all bright and full of birds. I liked the third. At the consultation, a resident asked whether leaving the wall plain was one of the choices. The organiser hesitated, then added a blank card to the table.

The resident explained that the wall caught the low evening sun. Children made shadow shapes there while parents waited at the gate. I had walked past without noticing. That evening, I saw a pair of enormous hands become a rabbit beside the drainpipe. The proposed mural might still have worked around those shadows. It would also have changed the surface on which they appeared. A blank wall was already doing something, although it had supplied no drawing for the consultation pack.

We did not all vote for the blank card. I kept liking the third design. But the card changed the discussion from which picture we wanted to what kind of place we wanted the wall to remain. Choosing nothing new need not mean failing to imagine anything. Sometimes it begins with noticing what imagination has already found.

In this extract, the writer tries to show that leaving a space undecorated can be a considered choice.

Evaluate how successfully this is achieved. Support your views with detailed reference to the extract.