The Window of Longing

Rapunzel's Tower.

There was light.

But the darkness was infused in it. It sat like a lingering promise waiting to be fulfilled. Waiting to consume. It wasn't startling. It wasn't subtle. It was simply: waiting.

In the cracks drawn onto the concrete by time's gentle brush. Like hieroglyphics, the patterns on the steps whispered the secrets of times passed.

Walks long forgotten.

It cried out, begging to be heard, to be remembered.

Pitter-patter-pitter.

Children and adults. Individuals of all ages had walked those steps. Rushing to and from a past that laid covered. That laid still. That stagnated. The conversations whispered in passing clung to the dust that blanketed the floor and, like dew on a spring morning, dotted the numerous spider webs that stretched from corner to corner. It was like a limb that begged for resuscitation. The only sign of life.

Pipes, dead with rust, clung onto the falling structure, surrounded by stains created in a time when water still rang through their barren bodies. Stains that darkened the already dark walls, creating a picture of black and grey.

Like a stalker, I stood from the outside looking in. Peering through a hole in a wall erected to keep that time machine a secret. With greedy eyes, curious eyes, I took it all in. I documented each crumbling corner. Each invisible insect. Each silent soul. For the souls were tired and could no longer speak. The inanimate trinkets and sturdy shapes kept them alive in their stillness, in their resistance to change. Their inability to change.

So, I heard their stories told. So my imagination conjured their voices. So I breathed in their memories and sneezed for they were not mine to hold. So I turned and walked up the stairs, to hide behind my own wall and be my own secret. To sit and wonder, peering from the inside out, what changes, memories, stars I would find if the world released its Rapunzel. So I watched the sun set on a moonless night. I sat. I watched.

Waiting.