The Tower

I am safe in a dead sleep.
Not safe.
At first, all I can see are the vague, dark shapes offered by the
inside of my eyelids. But then I know I'm not safe anymore. I can see
it. A square of light, pulsing. Slowly, it seems to grow, and I know it
is coming for me. I am afraid, but I cannot alter its course, cannot
deter it. Each passing moment is agony, every throb of light brings
more pain. The pain grows as the light grows, until it penetrates like
a writhing serpent, forcing its way in. It reaches my naked eye.
The brightness is painful to look at, yet strangely attractive to me.
I must go towards it. It becomes a window, open to greying light, open
to static air, looking out over an expanse of cracked earth that rolls
out forever.
Where is this place?
I do not know where I am yet I cannot feel my heart quickening. My
breath does not fall shallow. My flesh does not tingle with nervous
instinct. These are things that I must surely feel, yet all is dulled,
controlled.
The scene takes form before my eyes and inside my head simultaneously.
The room has smoothly curved walls, textured like orange peel, or rough
skin. There is a bed, white and clinical, which fails to be softened by
the drapes of light muslin shroud. The floor is warm, and moves
slightly under my bare feet, a meniscus suspending me here. The walls
pulse with adornments of flowing, precious jewels. Long green and blue
wires and opal-black glass on which green lights glisten and
shudder.
Blue and red jewels encircle my arms, and slither across my long white
robes. Their fastenings are embedded in my skin like small, jawed
teeth, making my arms feel bruised and heavy. I move uneasily.
For what ceremony must I be dressed like this?
Looking out once more across the desert, I search for clues as to my
existence along the horizon line, but it is blurred into the thick air,
and I cannot tell where it begins or ends. Waves of sound move slowly
towards me, muffled in the viscous atmosphere. I hear someone calling a
name. It must be my name. The word is so familiar, and there is no one
else here to hear it.
"Rapunzel, Rapunzel..."
Is that the name I hear?
"Rachael? Can you hear me? Please wake up..."
I am awake, but I cannot see who is calling me, or where they are. I
look out of the window, but I see nothing.
"... Let down your hair."
I look down from the window. My room is high up in a white, tower in
the middle of the desert. The base of the tower is plunged into a
clouded heart, deep below. It is impossible to tell from here if the
tower rests on the desert earth or the cloud substance, if on anything
at all.
The window is the only way out of here.
If I left this place, what would happen to me? If I made the hazardous
leap across to the ground, would I die where I dropped? I could walk
across the desert for days and nights and die of thirst if not madness.
I could jump and keep on falling. Fall forever.
The voice invades my thoughts again.
"I love you."
Who is this man that says he loves me? I search for a figure on the
horizon, but I see no one. I see nothing but desert. Should I cross the
wasteland for this man's love, or should I wait for him to cross over
to me? Would he dare? Perhaps this is the reason why I am trapped here;
to be taken from this place, beyond the wasteland, rescued by a
man.
"I am so sorry, Rachael".
These words float like a black fog towards me. A new wind moans. The
tower shakes. Dark feelings well up inside me. I feel sorrow, anger;
resentment. I run inside. I plug my ears. But the words keep coming,
steel balls against bricks and mortar.
"So sorry, so sorry. Please wake up and forgive me, my
princess."
The words degrade. This man uses words like battering rams to force
his way. His determination unnerves me. I have been imprisoned here,
but I must escape. If the tower is destroyed, the desert will be all
that remains.
Perhaps the window is not the only way out. Let nothing be overlooked
in my search. I rub my palms along the walls, feeling the peaks and
hooks of the surface. My fingertips search for a raised pattern, a
trigger unleashing a secret.
Perhaps there is a room beneath mine, someone to help me there. I put
my ear to the floor. The floor is moist, and spongy, like under fish
skin. As I look, I see knots and whirls develop. They move and reappear
further along the grain, and the colour changes from fresh pine to
weathered mahogany. I listen to it breathe, and know that it breathes
with me. I watch new buds grow from its fresh bark skin. Cells are
reproduced and die. My escape must entail a change.
I press my face up against the jewels along the walls. Light is
refracted through the red and blue crystals. Tiny cells move
mechanically through the wires. They measure the passing seconds of my
life, like crystals of sand flowing through the neck of an hourglass.
The green lights flicker with each contraction of my heart
muscle.
I smooth my hands along the bed, but it is too cold, too tight to hide
anything.
The tower almost senses my despair. It sways once. It stops dead. I
sense that time is short. I gather my thoughts and begin my search once
more, looking for recesses where things might be hidden.
A shard glints from the very centre of the room, where I must have
looked over a thousand times. A piece of mirror.
Mirror, mirror on the wall.
The mirror is cruel. It shows me myself. Is this real? Am I not a
princess in this world, dressed in delicate white robes swathed with
colourful jewels? The mirror shows me a simple rag of a gown, tied at
my neck, and the jewels around my arms are filled with my blood. There
are purple thumbprints round my neck, and my once beautiful hair hangs
in a few matted strands.
Rapunzel, Rapunzel. Let down your hair.
I hear my Prince call to me again, "Rachael. I'm sorry. I swear
nothing will hurt you ever again. I will keep you safe from harm. You
won't need anybody else. I will give you everything, and I won't hurt
you. Just come back to me." I feel the tower sinking.
How could you save me just by making me stay with you?
I do not want you to rescue me.
No man can save me.
I alone can save myself.

The window is the only way out of the tower, and I must find some way
of delivering myself to safety from here. Carefully, I tie all the
muslin drapes together, and secure them to the foot of the bed. Off
come the sheets! These are stiff and difficult to twist and tie. My
hands rub raw with the effort. Off comes my robe! I n this realm, where
my imagination creates all around me, my robe is long, with a sweeping
train, and a lace shawl is detached and one end is tied to the end of
the train, the other wrapped around my waist. I throw the white bundle
through the window and lower myself down from the ledge.
I look down, but, my bare feet just touch the top of the mist, and the
ground is still too far below for me to jump. Another metre is all I
need. Then I would have the confidence to leap, but there is no more
cloth.
I realise with relief that I am still wearing my jewels, wrapped
around my throat and arms like sleeping serpents. I unhook the clasp of
the red wire from where it is coiled about my throat onto the lace of
the shawl, then slowly twist and twirl my body until I am released from
its hold. It unravels across my shoulders and chest, down my left arm
and then my right, until I dangle deep into the mist.
The wire is still attached to my wrist, as I look around for a
footing. I feel nothing beneath my feet. I cannot see the earth to
reach it. I cannot even see the tower from which I am suspended. My
Prince's voice has gone, and I am truly alone.
Where will I land when I leap, for leap I must, there is no going
back. Will I land on the dry earth, and walk back across the wasteland
until I find my Prince? Will I land elsewhere? Will I carry on falling?
Hell. Heaven. Earth. Oblivion. Now I must choose. I loosen the wire
from my wrist and watch the red life essence flow down, where I will
follow.
I leap.