He had climbed almost to the top, and the journey had worn him down completely. Story after story, step after step, he climbed. His feet knew the rhythm of the staircase now, the spiral staircase that he ascended inside this tower of many rooms and so many stories. But here, close to the top, the tower was unkempt. It was dark and cold. A slippery wetness coated the walls.

He had left the room that was now below him because he saw a light above. He knew that, but he could not remember why he had been in that room. When he had stepped back onto the staircase to climb again, he had seen the source of the light. Above, just one story above, there was a door, outlined with light pouring in from outside. Outside the tower. And there were no steps above this door; no more stories or landings. This door was the final door. The final room.

He had little energy, as the journey had been long and he now felt old and was old. His pack, too, dug into his shoulders and made each step up a supreme effort of his spent muscles and tired mind. But he knew he must struggle upward, and maybe that door was why. Maybe that’s what he had been climbing toward all along. Only one way to find out. He gathered his strength and made for another effort.

His boot settled on the next step. He made to lift himself upward again when a voice spoke from behind the door. “You do not need to hurry. You are almost here. Before you come along any farther, set your pack down. You cannot bring those things with you; you must leave everything behind.”

It didn’t occur to him to question the voice. He was too tired to argue, to question, to wonder, and at this dark altitude, advice, especially advice from behind that final door, was welcome. He unshouldered the well-worn pack. He could barely keep from dropping it, how heavy it was. He lowered it to rest beside him. Looking down at it, he was amazed at how it bulged, at how heavy it looked, and he wondered why and how he had carried it such a long way, up so many steps.

“How do you feel now?” The voice asked. He answered. “Better. Much better. I wondered if I could make it to the door, but now I think it will be no problem.” His legs felt powerful without the burden of his pack to bear, and he knew he could reach the door. Why had he ever carried that pack? Why had he spent so much time adding things to it, so many things from so many levels? How much easier would the journey upward have been had he not labored under the effort of carrying those things, the things sitting beside him now that he fully intended to gladly leave behind.

“It is always so,” said the voice. He looked up from the pack to the door. The blaze of light streaming in around the closed door was brighter than it had been moments ago, too bright to look directly into it, and he longed to see that daylight, to leave the dark and dampness of this tower. Somehow he knew when he stepped through that door there would be no more steps to climb. “Some people carry more and some carry less, but when I tell them to leave their possessions behind, they are always relieved. Like you, they wonder just how much more energy, how much more time to enjoy, they could have had if they had not wasted so much of themselves carrying things that would ultimately not be needed or even wanted. But do not regret; there is nothing to be gained in that now. You have made the climb, and you cannot retrace it.”

He made no reply to this. Instead he looked away from the door above and back down the spiral to the depths of the tower. Below, the door to the room before this final ascent remained partially open. He could see the shadows of people falling on the pattern of pale tile that comprised the floor of that room. Those shadows were not moving. Below the room, the tower darkened quickly and the steps he had once ascended could not be seen through the dank mist, but he was sure he remembered that far below the tower had been well-lit and well-cared for.

“Before you come these final steps, I ask you have you loved?” The voice questioned.

Blinking at the light as he looked back up to the door, he finally spoke back. “Yes. Yes I have.” He thought about the question, and without the struggle to stand from his former load, his mind seemed to clear. “I have, many friends and many people.”

“This is good. You will be well pleased to know that once you pass through. Have you been loved?”

“Yes, I have. Once as a father by someone who needed my love too and once, for a time, by someone whose love I needed. And by those who now stand in my thoughts.”

“This is good also. These things should be clear in your mind before you come these final steps. There is something uncertain in your answer; what is it?”

He looked down at his boots, worn to tatters from so much climbing, and answered. “I am alone here now, but I do not feel alone. I feel inside me those who love me. But yes, I have traveled a long way with sadness too. You would know of that?”

“I think I would, if you would tell me.”

His hand reached into his right shirt pocket, and he pulled a small note from it. It was crumpled, torn, and yellowed from time. He looked at it, reading the lines on it slowly. Then he placed it back into his pocket, as carefully as his old, tired hands could manage. “Long, long ago, and so far down this tower that I cannot see anymore, I left love behind, and ever after that I have had a hole in me. It pains me even now.”

“You are carrying regret?”

“I am. And when the thought of it hits me, I do not have the strength to climb. But yes, there was someone who I desperately wanted to love and to have her love me. And maybe for a time we did, but I lost that.”

“I saw you pull a paper from your pocket. What is that note you read? I have already said that you can bring nothing through this door but yourself.”

He blushed at this, and said, “I suppose it is the memory of love.”

“Then you may bring it. And your memory of love. But not your memory of regret. Come now.” The light behind the door lost its blazing intensity and shown as he had first seen it.

He stepped up, and though the air remained cold and damp, he did not feel that. He saw the door. He stepped again, and again, until he could almost reach it with his hand. He stopped a last time and looked down. Below, the room below seemed much farther away than the additional few steps he had taken would account for, and now he could see none of the tower below it; all was in darkness, except the sliver of light coming from that last room he had occupied before climbing this final story. And from that room he thought he heard a voice saying, “You don’t have to go; please don’t go.” But if those words were meant for him, he was sure whoever was saying them had not seen the condition of the tower staircase he now stood upon, or this door that promised light and fresh air. He turned back toward the door and reached out.

When he touched it, the door disappeared, and light and air flowed into the tower. He thought for a moment he might fall, and he was instantly dizzy from the sensation. Then the air flowed back up from the depths of the tower and out the doorway. He followed this breeze into the light.

As he stepped through his old boot landed on the summit of the tower. His second boot followed and he stood facing no more steps, no more climbing, no more stories. For a time he could see nothing. His eyes shut to drown out the stranger that was light. In this way, he felt the warm air pour over him. Warm air; fresh air. He opened his eyes. To the horizon in every direction were towers, some taller and some shorter than his. They stood in fields of grass, in fields of flowers, in lakes, on mountains, everywhere they stood. Above them all was a blue sky. He stood for a while, his mind trying to comprehend this incredible scene, the incredible scale of what he was seeing. Without succeeding in that he turned around and looked back for the door he had passed through. Yet there was no door, no entrance back into the tower. He looked back out to the towers that surrounded him. Some, he saw, had doors on them at the top, and some did not.

He saw nothing of whatever or whoever had owned the voice that had spoken to him from behind the door. In the distance, he saw a figure standing on a tower, slowly turning around and around. He thought, “What is this about? Where am I and what do I do?” He remembered coming up those last steps, and he remembered, somewhat hazily, the conversation he had had before reaching the door.

He sighed. “Love. Yes, before I came to the top, I had that. I had it from friends, and from family. And I shared it, too. I shared it along the way.” That made him think of something else. He reached into his pocket and removed a small note. He looked at it. The note appeared as though it has just been pulled from an envelope fresh in its first delivery, the bright white paper shining in the sunlight. He read it:

Love is anterior to life,
Posterior to death,
Initial of creation, and
The exponent of breath.
E.D.

“I have this, then, ” he thought as a smile, so long absent from his face, was now born. “I have the memory of love.” He let go of the note, and the breeze gained it, carrying it steadily away, as it fluttered up and down. The note landed on another tower, one that still had a door on its summit waiting to be opened. He thought, “I do not need you anymore, because I know now I will never, could never, forget. May you be found and passed on again, and again, and share this one message that matters.”

He looked at the tower nearest him; it was a little taller, but he could see a door on it. He thought, “Maybe I’ll just wait here for some company, rest a bit, and then discover what this place is about.” He sat down and stretched his legs out straight and then laid back until his face looked into the sky. He closed his eyes, but already he could feel the tiredness leaving him, the soreness gone, and there was nothing but gladness in his heart that before he crossed that door to this place, he had shared the one thing he could take with him here, and that he had shared it with others, who would take it with them when their turn came to pass through their own doors and into the light.


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