The Tower

I went to the tower last night for the last time.
I went to the tower last night for the first time.


Across a wooded lawn and straight to the building. I knew where I was going even though it had been decades since I had gone. Or even though I had never been.

Gone up slick steps into the ancient brick and plaster place, straight down a marbled hallway, darkened after sunset on a dim autumn day. Through a turnstile to a desk built into the place in deep carved wood. Seemed like a barrier.

A couple of women were tending it and some young men were nearby doing things. I told the woman at the desk I wanted to go to the tower, and said some watchword that I don't remember now, but I expected her to understand. She didn't. Almost tried to ignore me. So I inquired again. She turned and asked another woman nearby, was there any tower? I butted in and said the watchword again, the other said "I don't know."

An older lady came over and said "Show her in there." And pointed to half open door. I realized that the two other ladies were too young to remember, were not born the last time I came to the tower.

Through the door was an unused back hall, and twisty stairs up and down. I ascended steps that each curved down in the middle, lightly ran my hand along a polished wood rail, ascending into a space lit by tiny faceted windows, frosted with dust.

On the final landing was a narrow area, a gallery to a larger room. You could have peered over the rail and down several floors the huge library below, but I didn't. I noticed tables and chairs obviously unused by the way they were situated against each other. But that's not what I was moving toward. There was a woman lying on the floor, crooked, her knees drawn up, her arms behind her, her head bowed. And over her head was tied a sweater or shirt of some bronze fabric.

As I approached her she moved and that upset me.

She spoke. "Don't worry about this. I am just fine here. Comfy." I knew her. She had been here last time I came to the tower, three and a half decades earlier. She was older than me.

Seeing her there on the floor made me feel the deep distance between myself and the younger me, her other visits, her familiarity with this place, her certainty that she belonged, that she would return.

A time had come when I did not return. And maybe ... I forgot.

The woman on the floor was speaking to me:

"It's alright for you to come back here now, you know. And you can return again any time. But I won't be here much longer."

I knew what she meant. I knew what I would do. And my head felt very full. Almost too full to stand.