stairwell

The tower stands silent, tall and looming in the failing day. Dark crows play tag along the patched roof top, siloettes against the golden sky. Here and there bricks from the once glamorous balconies lay scattered across the ground, waiting for unwary feet to trip across them. Faded lawns blend with faded stone, a painting of various greys. Within the tower a staircase spirals up endlessly out of sight. Delicate wrought-iron guard rails break from their duty, hanging crazily over the edges of crumbling steps. Geologic layers of dust record the time between travelers, filling in foot prints as time goes by. Bright shards of sunlight slip through slits in the tower walls, but are dimmed by the expanse of nothing filling the tower from wall to wall. Dead leaves have drifted in during autumn storms, caught in corners by invisible cobwebs. The tower has slept for years on end, undisturbed except by time.
Someone stirs within the walls now though. Threadbare warriors look out from moth-eaten tapestries, wordlessly watching the strange intruder. It is a man. He is roughly dressed, clothing worn and tattered. It hangs loosely from his slender frame. His hair stands at odd angles, pushed and pulled by restless fingers. His eyes are shadowed, hueless in the gloom. They stare straight ahead, never leaving the next step up.
The rustle of his footsteps on the stair quietly interrupts the reigning silence. His breathing saws harshly from his lungs, in and out. He climbs, up and up and up, never slowing, never speeding up. He raises a shaking hand and rubs dust from his eyes. He had a mission when he started this ascent, one he thought to end at tower's apex. As he stops to rest, however, he finds he has forgotten what seemed so very important before. This monotony of endless steps, of endless grey, presses in on him and he wishes for the happy motes of dust that danced in the brief slices of sunlight from the lower floors. He looks up again, the spiral circles up infinite flights. He looks below, golden light streams across the stone floor just a few stories down. With a sigh he straightens his shoulders, and continues his climb, up , and up, and up.

i've started two posts today, and each one i ended up deleting. One too moody, the other trite. The turn of seasons is getting to me i think. Still mired in the storms of winter, but teased tantalizingly by hints of summer to be. I hate feeling trapped in Limbo. A puppet with no master to pull the strings, hanging lifelessly, waiting for changes. And lo there it is. : )