GenZedong

The Terror of The Tower

In the land of Classia, there lurked a tall, tall tower, stretching up high toward the sky. The tower had no door, no stairs to climb, and no grooves on its walls with which to grab onto. It was, by all appearances, something to be looked at, not conquered. But as it happened, a merchant man and his large band of servants came passing through the area. The merchant man was ambitious and stubborn, and when he set his mind to something, he did not easily give up on it.

So it was that when the merchant man laid his eyes on the tower, he concluded, "I must find a way to reach the top of it. From there, I can see far to know the lay of the land. From there, I can echo my message around, far and wide, to sell more goods. From there, I can be safe from all threats and conduct business as I please."

The servants doubted this goal, but as they were dependent on his goodwill, they stayed silent and did not question him. The merchant man set about trying this and that to get to the top of the tower. First, he had his servants look for a door or opening, but there was no door and no opening. Next, he had his servants look for stairs, but they explained that with the lack of a door or opening, surely if there were stairs, there was no way to access them. Then he had his servants try to climb, but they could find no grooves to grasp.

A different kind of man might have given up, but the merchant man was determined and saw his servants not as fellow men, but as assets of his business. So it was that after much wandering around the base of the tower and pondering of possibility, he came upon a new idea.

He ordered his servants to gather at the base of the tower and stack upon each other, building a human ladder for him to climb. Some of the servants hesitated, a few refused and left, but most stayed, not knowing where else to turn to for sustenance in their lives.

And so the servants stacked and climbed and teetered and adjusted, until they had built an awe-inspiring human ladder that reached the tippy top of the tower. The merchant man was triumphant and joyous, and he clambered over the bodies of his servants, step by step, body by body, until the ground slipped away and became distant. Up, up, up, he went, until he reached the very step and, with a final tottering step, half-fell over the lip, onto the top of the tower.

The merchant man was tired, but ecstatic. He had done it. From here, he could be more than he had ever been. From here, he could be larger than life. From here, he could rule.

The servants were exhausted from the great effort of building and maintaining their great human wall, and were all the more wearied by the merchant man traipsing up it. They swayed and teetered and struggled. Cracks in their strength grew, shouts rang out, and the whole thing of it begin to collapse. The lower ones became crushed and the higher ones fell too far for a human to fall.

By the end of it, the servants were no more, scattered at the bottom in mangled disarray. But the merchant man was unmoved. He had achieved what he wanted and reasoned that he could find more servants, especially from the vantage of his perch.

Some time later, a traveling laborer came across the tower. She was shocked by the terrible sight of fellow laborers gone cold and, seeing the man at the top of the tower, looking down from on high, she cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted at him in question, "Ho! What has happened here? What has befallen these people?"

The merchant man, being more cunning than conscientious, had little need to ponder the question. He lied easily, spreading his arms in a magnanimous gesture and smiling down at what could become a future servant, "Why, it is a great tragedy. Those who lie before you are those who tried to climb this tower and failed. It is only I who have succeeded. But if you work for me and learn from me, then maybe you, too, will one day be able to climb the tower."

Author's Note: This is meant as more metaphor than literal, kind of like a fable. Literally being at the top of a tower that's next to impossible to get in and out of and has no apparent sustenance at the top is probably not a benefit.