The Tower

Babel

It is older than all the gods, the sapient species and the worlds of known reality. Not a stair but a gate, it coexists between every dimension, every paradigm. It stands, isolated and mortifying, surrounded by impenetrable mists. The black metal rises beyond the wall of vapor vanishing in the gray nothing. Unidentifiable sounds echo crazily, with only the bleak structure—the surface pitted and polished by the winds of countless worlds—as a reference point in the great, damp void.

It cannot be heard from the rear of the structure, felt perhaps by a sensitive few; gossamer like a premonition, urgent but unspecific; ultimately ignored. Then, while walking the perimeter of quietly, rhythmically ringing metal, the breathing can be heard, an enormous sound. Near silence, then the roaring gale howled from the gaping maw. Here, at the opening, the metal seemed to flow, not like water but like skin as the Cyclopean mouth widened for the inhalation. Roaring silence, ears ringing from the tumult of the exhalation, and then everything is flying into the darkness, a disc of ribbon realities growing below.