To reach the tower it took five hundred steps which wound the mountain in the shape of a cobra, curled under its den of sky. We laughed, we dreamed, we counted stars. We hopped the galaxies and rode the comets, kicking dandelion seeds toward the moon.
In the summer the tower rose with the grace of a golden lady, in the winter it shivered and shook under the snows. In the spring, the ivy flowered in purples and reds, in the autumn, it caught yellow leaves in the cracks.
We went in the rain, leaving foot holes in the mud. We went in the sun, racing to the shade with a gasp of heat.
We went, all three of us. At night after curfew tucked us in soldier’s rows of cotton beds and in morning before the schoolmasters woke and the rooster had not yet crowed.
To reach the tower it took five hundred steps which we walked a thousand more. Until there was a time when we never came back. But that, my friend, must wait for another story.
(An excerpt for a work-in-progress story of childhood lost and found, When Rivers Flowed on Mars).
