It was a slight against god. It perched on the hill, straining for the skies as an outstretched claw. Stone bricks atop grass, the tower had pulled itself from the very ground, wrenching itself upwards by force. And the tower cast a shadow over the town, a sweeping path of chilling darkness that brought with it shivers and a fingernail drifting down your spine. It was the whisper in the back of your head as your gaze shifted skyward. It was the place your eyes rested as you gazed out the classroom window to the lazily warm summer day.
It was by her word that it grew. It was by her command that it strained against gravity. It was by her will that it took shape. The tower was its master and the master was the tower. The unison of flesh and stone transcended the limitations of construction.
They say she came from the stars, descending from her palace to walk amongst us mortals. They say her feet were like mountains, her eyes like hurricanes, her presence divine. She was a goddess, a titan, a witch. She had been there for as long as any could remember, sitting atop her tower, doing who knows what?
When we were young and youth still tasted like the rot of ice cream on pavement, the stench of gasoline by the road, and the rubber of your shoes sticking to pavement, they told us never to talk to the witch. They told us her tower was an evil thing, that she took little boys like us, that she ate them. And perhaps, it was a certain point of fascination to us. We swapped stories about her, all wildly fabricated of course, the way that summer camps collect stories about the ghosts in the woods. And perhaps, she too acquired legendary status the way we would happily tell the big city kids we met on the camps and field trips and inter-school tournaments.
"Yeah," we'd say. "Our town has a witch and she watches the skies 24/7."
And they would laugh and tell us about the serial killer they never caught and the monster in the lake and the cat that ate people. And we would laugh too and assume they were telling the truth. Cities seemed like scary places if they had all those things. We only had a witch to deal with, which seemed easy enough. She never came down to see us.
And when I was a boy, maybe 16 or so, we took a joyride down to the big city and I learned that none of it was real. They hadn't believed me, because witches aren't supposed to be real. They aren't supposed to plant towers like seeds and sit atop them for centuries, gathering power and watching over us. Magic was a thing of stories, confined to libraries and fairy tales. Campfire stories were fictional because fear is more of a mark of pride than truth.
But when you try to say that there really is a witch, they just laugh. They're too smart for you. You're just some small town hick. There can't be a witch. And it amazes me that anyone could think so while growing up in the concrete towers that line their streets. Wandering between skyscrapers, I wondered how anyone could see those and disbelieve a witch. Because how could there be so many? How could there be so many people in the world? How could it be so full?
The first time I kissed a boy was at the base of that tower. It was late and someone had stolen a 6-pack of beer from an older sibling and we were playing truth or dare. And in between the awkward fumbling, the pitter patter of choosing who to kiss, who to laugh at, Dan dared Wick to run to the tower and touch it. And Wick hesitated because none of us had ever gone that close to it before. Because it hung over our minds oppressively. Some stupid childlike instinct kicked in and I offered to go with him. And so, the two of us hiked all the way up the main street, past the Tim's, and found ourselves at the base of the tower. The others had followed us from a distance, a pack of laughing jackals. But they evaporated once it became clear we weren't going to chicken out.
We stood there together at the base of the tower. It was carved neatly from stone, in places pure, in places bricks, in places ornate with engravings and statues. Wick gently ran a hand along it and I ran a hand down his arm until our fingers interlocked and we were pressing against the stone together. His lips met mine and to be honest, I didn't really feel anything. It was awkward and stilted and I didn't know how to move my mouth and I don't think he did either and it was over just like that.
I felt the witch's eyes on our backs as we left, back to the safety of the light. We'd touched her tower and walked away. Most didn't believe we'd actually done it. But to me, it was like a spell had been broken. The witch was not a monster or an abomination. She was a friend, watching over the town. Sometimes when the sun was just right, you could see a glint from the top of the tower, a reflection of metal and motion. What was she building up there? What did she do?
And on the eve of university, I lay on a blanket out back and watched the stars. My then boyfriend cuddled next to me and he wasn't looking because he hated the stars and he hated the outdoors and always said he was going to the city first chance he got. But I was going away next week and he still had a year to go and so he came out with me, his head on my shoulder, his eyes on social media. I watched the stars and I watched them spin and I thought of the witch. I thought she must've been lonely. I thought that maybe she stared at the stars too and in that way we would see each other.
My boyfriend asked if we could go in and I just said "yeah, in a minute". I was going away next week. I didn't know if I would be back. I would miss it.
Cities are full of noise and smoke and it's easy to lose yourself, lose your past. You forget where you come from in time, forget the way it flowed differently around you and through you. There was no tower here, nothing ominous on the skyline, no whispers of magic. The rumours took the form not of rampant speculation, but fact. Who fucked who, which professors graded hardest, how the world was ending. I suppose the world was ending. It was obvious when you were in a city and could feel the way the heat sunk into its bones, the ways the distant bombs rattled laptops and phones. The shock pulse of the world radiated through us there and we went to battle for it, signs and chants against the weight of politics.
The rage of youth is fun and powerful. But then you get old and grow up. We drifted apart again, one by one, until I found myself with no one anymore. The city felt lonely. It was a fragile thing, a toy left behind by a fake people. Without other options, I found myself drifting back home slowly, one town at a time. Until I found myself there again, standing at the base of the tower. For old time's sake, I touched it. I ran my hand along the base and walked in a perfect circle back to where I had started, my fingers finding their way into the tight grooves and scorch marks and carefully chiseled illegible messages. It was less a tower and perhaps more a tree, I thought. It didn't feel like a skyscraper, overpowering and ugly. It was an old friend. It wanted to be loved. It was taller than I remembered. It dominated the sky, scraping at the very clouds.
Childhood never returned. The joy of speculation was gone. It was just a thing that existed, yet another strange quirk of the world. It was almost humorous the way the kids obsessed. You could hear it in the way they chattered, see it in the way they moved. If I sat on a bench and watched the road, they would fly along it with the energy of the infinite and I would boggle that had ever been me.
And I fell in love of sorts, and maybe it was settling. Can you ever really know? But it was comfortable and it was safe and there weren't that many boys who wanted to kiss me and he was sweet. I would wake up in the mornings and he would've been up for hours baking the most delicious things, incredibly patiently so as not to rattle the pans. And I'd kiss him, tasting the sugar on his lips, and he'd laugh and offer me the spoon to lick. And I tried to pretend that I didn't miss the fire of youth, that I was okay working a forgettable job. That the world was going to end someday maybe, but it probably wasn't because it didn't feel like.
I told our kids about the witch when they were old enough to see it. I told them about the tower, about how I'd touched it once, about how they had towers like this in the cities and they weren't grown but made. A pale imitation, I called them. Unnatural. They dripped with the sense of decline. And my children stared at me wide eyed and I realized I'd influenced a whole generation of playground gossip and that made me smile. Years later, I would quietly chuckle when the young adults would confidently state that if you touched the tower you would fall in love. That was new.
I worked my job. I weeded my garden. I washed the dishes and went to the bar and smiled and laughed and sometimes watched movies and held poker nights and birthday parties for the kids and held them when they were sad. I did a thousand things. I lived a life and no one could ever take that away from. I lived a life in the shadow of the tower and never knew what it meant. I never found what I was looking for.
And when I was old, when my hair was grey and my hands weak, I couldn't sleep. I would sit awake at night and my husband would bid me to rest, but our bed had grown cold long ago. I'd sit by the window and stare at the tower and pretend that I didn't have to go back to his waiting arms, to his quiet dissatisfaction.
Despite that, after the funeral I couldn't face going back to an empty bed. I couldn't face the despair of our kids, the sympathies of relatives, the silence of a house where two had once been comfortable as one. And so, I found myself walking the high road late at night. The moon was high and the stars were friendly and the tower almost seemed to glow. I found myself at the base of it once again, tracing my hand over the familiar patterns. There was a door there, and so I must've been dreaming. I took a deep breath. I entered the tower.
Atop the tower, there sat a massive bronze telescope, gears and lenses and clockwork working at the command of an old lady who ignored my approach. She stared at the skies, intent on seeing something, seeing anything. She searched with a fury and a passion. She was desperate.
"What are you looking for?" I asked.
"Once upon a time," she said. "One of the stars gazed upon humanity and saw the most beautiful woman. She was so entranced, so enthralled, that she descended to Earth to speak with this woman. They fell deeply in love. They were wed. They were happy. And then the women died and the star was lonely."
"Do you think," I said, "that is it possible for the star to return to the stars?"
She shook her head.
"Stars may carry on forever, but people don't," I said. "But, the thing is, there are always more people." I placed one hand on her shoulder and smiled. "May I?"
It's easy to look down on things from up above. But first one has to look. I pointed the telescope down at the town and showed her. I showed her where I'd had my first beer, made my first friend, slept after I fought with my parents. I told her I'd had my first kiss at the base of her tower and she laughed a little.
"Why a tower?" I asked.
"To touch the sky," she said.
"Come on," I said. "Let's try touching dirt."
And hand in hand, we descended back to the ground. And she laughed. She laughed at the carvings on the base of the tower declaring that some letter hearted some other letter. She laughed at the beauty of the trees, of the roads, of the infinite potential of youth. She laughed as I took her back to our house, once again full of the light of life and memory. I laughed too because it was kind of funny in the end.
And as we walked away, the tower began to glow. Purpose served, it almost seemed to sigh a little. The flames gently licked the walls as smoke ponderously rose from the collapsing tower. By morning, it was as though it was never there, just another one of the myths woven into the tapestry of our town.
And when old age was too much to bear, a star held my hand as I died. I smiled as I passed. I smiled, not because I had a star, but because I had a best friend. That was enough, really.
The tower was about the past and sometimes you just have to let the past burn. You can get as close to the stars as you like, but you'll never touch them. Sometimes you don't find what you're looking for and that's okay. Maybe that just means it's time to look for something else.
This story was prompted by the sentence "The flames gently licked the walls as smoke ponderously rose from the collapsing tower." which I had to incorporate. Yay for friends who do writing challenges.