Gift

The tower had stood for a long time.

White, porous, all in bends and wormholes like frozen smoke.

Someone had given a word, promise, oath, brought a vow — and thus placed another stone into the wall of the tower. It lay down evenly, as if finding its place, and the tower grew a little taller. A little stronger.

But sometimes the opposite happened. To tell the truth, quite often. Every broken word destroyed the tower. It happened like this: first, a thin, barely noticeable crack appeared on one of the stones — not yet the end, but already the beginning. Then the crack sprouted. It stretched, grew and grew... branched out like an old elm until it finally enveloped the entire stone. And then, the stone crumbled into white chalk dust, and the promise that held this stone in place like resin turned to dust and lay on the floor light as flour. Or like ash.

You had been watching over the tower for many years. Days merged into one long, quiet evening where each hour resembled the one that had passed before it. You wandered from floor to floor. Touching the stones, you examined others' oaths. As the guardian of the tower, you could not leave it and tried to slow down its collapse with your touch. And yet your white tower slowly but inevitably deteriorated. A draft swept through its floors and halls, penetrating through holes in the walls; in the openings, gray sky was visible as if the world beyond the tower had long accepted its end.

Thus time flowed and it seemed that just a few more broken promises and it would all be over for the tower and for you. But that evening, at the white gnawed walls forgotten by vows, a traveler suddenly appeared.