The Tower

West of the Karnak river and past the town of mason up from the brittle rock rises a dark tower. The tower is an evil and dangerous place which is nearly impossible to gain entrance although very few would ever try of their own accord. Inside the ominous fortress lies a maze of hidden rooms and sight barring walls filled with enemies around every corner ready to suck the life from your bones and the will from your spirit. It is a place of extreme temperatures ranging from bitter cold to blistering heat, the very air you breathe is noxious and stale, allowing the stench of sweat and death to cling to every breath.

Very few live to escape this evil place though many wish for death long before it comes. Almost all who enter become trapped inside the rough shell, encased in the walls of the very maze that some think are meant to keep you away from reaching the top of the tower but those who have seen it know that it is not to keep you out but to trap you there forever. In these cells the prisoners are kept in solitary confinement under harsh lights, crushed into rock hard surroundings to do the masters evil bidding. Here the captives are made to go without food or water for long periods of time, they sit in the extreme temperatures and breathe the toxic air, blinded by the harsh lights and alternating pitch black corners. Those unlucky enough to be taken into the castle spend their formatives years freedom less in this place, this inhospitable world. The inmates are kept away from the sun and any hint of nature except the slightest glimpses of the outside world which coincidentally are only allowed to further the torment of the prisoners, until at long last the dark powers lose all use for their slaves and release them back into the world broken and alone. Having spent their whole lives in servitude they have no other means of survival and soon wither and die not knowing how to handle the freedom they had for so long craved.

So here you find me, kicked to the curb by a vile master I never meant to serve, nearly blind and with arthritis and a bad back I retire to my ill kept home with my little pension and my broken marriage. Bitter and alone but finally free. But what is freedom? I wake every morning at the same time I had for the past 30 years but now with nothing to do, nothing to fill my day. I have no purpose now because the purpose I had for so long was only survival and now I am unable to fight for that survival and so I was shuffled off to an old folks home where I complain to anyone who comes into the range of my poor eyes or weak ears of my lost days working in the corporate world. How my life had been stolen by endless deadlines and constant overtime.

Here I sit in my old wheel chair with a green blanket over my knees, tri-focuals on my face along with warts and drool that no longer bother me. My hair has fallen out due to the stress and ill maintenance of my body and my hands shake involuntarily whenever I try to use them. So I sit and complain and stare at the television at the lives that made up characters live in a colorful make believe world where life lessons are learned every half hour and there is always time for one more story daddy, one more throw daddy, one more kiss husband, one more bite, one more mile around the park, one more Christmas morning, one more Saturday not alone.