The Tower

In the center of a wild forest stands a tower I call home. I call it home proudly as the forest hosts danger of all sorts- nameless monsters and phantoms of the night- which I don’t wish to encounter. Even though I have never met the creatures of the dark and day, the legends’ echo travels swiftly among the trees, telling haunted stories and their warning resounds unmistakably. Therefore, I better stay inside my tower and be sheltered for my sake.

“Can you believe, I have never been outside my tower?” I rhetorically ask the white barn owl that sits on my window shelf. I don’t expect an answer. In fact, she has never answered any of my questions before. All she does is come to my window every day and stare. Her round, pitch-black eyes are focused on me and, without blinking, she looks at me with great urgency as if she tries to transfer an important message to my very soul. Unfortunately, I do not speak that type of language and I quickly grow impatient with her. Some days I even shoo her off even though that leaves me with just as little clarity and no company on top.

"What is there for me to know anyway?" I silently wonder while I pour myself a fresh cup of coffee, decaf. I have everything I would ever need here inside my tower until the day I die. And when the day comes, it will not be due to any sort of injury or illness. No, I’m sheltered in my tower for my sake. It keeps me safe from any potential danger outside. Therefore, a long and healthy life is guaranteed. I take a sip of the lukewarm coffee I just poured. I drink it out of habit and boredom more than anything else. It does not have any particular effect on my neutral state and I actually don’t appreciate its taste, which mirrors the taste inside my mouth.

Once I finished drinking, I hold the empty cup a little while longer. For a split second, I feel a strange sense of comfort holding the cup that is so familiar to me. I wonder if the cup also feels comforted being held by me… I brush away those crazy thoughts as quickly as they came. Obviously, none of us needs comfort while already being safe and protected inside the tower. I look at the giant clock hanging on the white wall in front of me, suggesting that it’s time for bed.

After I finish brushing my teeth, I lie down. I cover my body with the blanket provided for me and don’t feel any different than I did before. Neutral. Comfortable. As always and forever. Since the atmosphere around me takes on my body temperature, I’m in a state of comfort at all times. Therefore, I don’t really need the blanket. It’s just an extra that goes along with the whole idea of sleeping in a bed.

I stare at the ceiling and wait for the sleeping pill to kick in. Any moment now. I turn my head to the window to my left one last time and there she is; sitting proudly and gracefully on my window shelf. Through the glass on the other side, she contacts me, trying to reach out. Will I answer her call this time? However, I don’t know what she wants from me. I don’t know what she possibly wants.

Without warning, my bed begins to shake uncontrollably. No, it’s not my bed shaking, it’s the tower! The shaking becomes stronger and stronger, leading the whole foundation to slowly break apart. I jump out of bed and run to the front door in order to save myself. With my hand already on the door knob, I hesitate.

“Should I really risk leaving the safety of my tower and meeting the danger outside?” I wonder.

But I no longer have a choice. Despite the strange urge to stay inside the collapsing tower and to go down with it, I leave everything I have known behind and step outside.

The first thing that hits me is the cold air that consumes my lungs at once. With a mixture of shock and exhilaration, my body grasps for the air that simultaneously pierces my being at the core. It’s like taking a breath for the very first time; painful yet life-affirming. My heart beats so fast that it’s knocking from the inside against my chest almost like it’s excitedly greeting me. I place one hand on the area where I feel my heart pounding and return its salutations.

“I had no idea that it was possible to feel my heart,” I whisper reverently under my heavy breath and my eyes begin to fill with tears.

The force of gravity gently invites me to meet the ground on which I stand and I give in willingly; thankful for the support that is being offered for my ecstatic body touched by the intensity of life. As I lie on the ground, I feel the cold, wet snow pressing against me from below, making me shiver. I feel resistant to this experience of the cold. However, only a moment later, a rush of excitement enters me as I realize that the cold temperature of the snow differs from the temperature of my own body! The unpleasant experience of the cold allows me to feel the warmth of my own body. I can feel myself through it. I can feel myself by feeling something outside of myself that I’m not.

“How beautiful. How beyond beautiful”, I sigh.

The adrenaline inside my veins slowly ceases and I am left with a sense of utter stillness. It is not the kind of stillness I was surrounded in day in and day out inside the tower, slowly and surely suffocating me. No, that type of stillness feels different. It provides unlimited space that goes beyond myself while filling my empty spaces with meaning.

I sure as hell am not comfortable right now, but life is touching me and I feel alive. I've never felt so clearly that all my heart ever desired was to take part while risking breaking; breaking through beauty or pain. In fact, it’s all the same. It all is life. And I’m here to participate in it.

I look up at the sky in which the sun rose quickly after the darkest of nights. The barn owl, white as the snow below me, circles above me for the first and final time.

She disappears into the wilderness of the forest and I smile with gratitude, knowing that, in this life, I will never see her again.

- Carina Hofmeister