It was not that big, perhaps even small, I couldn’t tell, the tower was destroyed. The base survived with the door frame, still standing with only five steps of the stairs, I came here for the first time to hide after doing mischief at home.
“First time you came, you were this tiny”. He pointed to the third step and laughed.
“What do you want next time?” I had to leave, he didn’t like that, when I was a kid we’d spend so much time together, but I grew up, I had to work. I never left my hometown because of him. I studied the whole day, and I still have a part time job as a cashier. I still came weekly, but for him it wasn’t enough.
“Bring me that thing that makes light. Pad. Tabled?”
“It’s tablet, you almost got it right!” It was really fun, we are from the same land, but we could not understand each other in the beginning. Despite being from the same land, our languages were not even in the same family, his language had disappeared probably thousands of years ago, when my ancestors invaded and colonized his land. He still had an arrow in his chest, and another in his throat. I remember the terror seeing that man, with raggedy uniform and ugly beard, and arrows buried in his long-gone flesh.
He, even dead, was quick at learning, and understood my kid blabbering and learned my language. The first thing he asked was to go find his bones, in hopes his soul would finally rest. I found his skull, still inside the helmet, I couldn’t be more than ten, he heaved, just like me, but I was the only one with physical puke. We laughed. I stole my mom’s gardening tools, and we buried his skull and other bones we could find, and we both looked at it, at him, and nothing, he was still tied to the tower somehow.
We thought about many theories, I even tried the religious way, but he did not know my religion and I didn’t know his. We tried both ways and still nothing, our gods both did not care about his poor soul. I grew up, people thought I was alone, I was weird, but I had Gisulf, he was my friend, the tower was our home.
He learned how to read with me, I learned how to observe nature and the weather with him, I even learned how to hold a bow and an arrow. Gisulf told me he had four boys, one just like me. He couldn’t say much before weeping, he was in the tower, he condemned his village. He died without knowing what happened to his family, taking two arrows before being able to tell them to run, hide, do something, it was just too painful for him.
“You are of age, have you found a woman?” Gisulf had been bothering me lately.
“I am not of age yet, times have changed, I need to finish university, find a good job, and then hope the girl to have also a good job, then we can date, and with luck we can get a house, marry and if we are lucky, have children.”
“We also had to have money and job to have a family, look at me, I died at work!” He laughed.
“I am just nineteen, I am just vibing.”
“Define vibing, please.”
“It means I am just enjoying the moment, I am not thinking about the future, just living my life as it is.” I forgot he still could not understand slang. Gisulf was twenty-six, in some years, I would be the same age as a tower soldier with a wife and many kids, his life was figured out. I did not have the heart to tell him I would finish my degree and move to the capital. I couldn’t.
While I juggled studying, working, and visiting him, Gisulf tried to explore the surroundings of the tower, however, he could not go more than two minutes away, he was pulled back to the center of the tower. He was a prisoner.
My small city was developing, it was a touristic spot, even for a godforsaken place like mine, and houses were advancing up the mountains, Gisulf watched the cranes and helicopters bringing materials, and the men building houses that he considered too big and too clumsy, that would not keep the heat during winter and stay fresh during summer. He could not understand that glass was not as expensive, but the flying helicopters and planes were too much for him, he said it was an affront to nature.
The time to say goodbye had arrived, I found an internship in the capital, I went up the beaten path, my hands were shivering, my feet sweating, I knew he would understand, but I couldn’t stop feeling the guilt to leave my only friend behind, it would be different if he could come along.
“I am leaving the town. I found a job in the capital and yeah… I am leaving. I am sorry.” I said, and sat on the third step, while Gisulf tried to pretend to be fine, he would have to go back to scream and cry alone. “I will visit sometimes.”
“Little one, you won’t, you are alive. Do well in your job, find a woman and make babies.” Gisulf spoke kindly to me, while I tried to hold back my tears.
“I brought you some books and stuff for you to pass your time, I’ll organize everything under the steps, so it’s all protected.” I just let myself cry, my favorite and only ghost I knew was going to be alone, while I continued my life far away.
I went to the big city, lived in tiny basement apartments without proper ventilation, saved every penny I could, moved into a bigger apartment already on the second floor, with only one roommate, got promoted, and then saved a little bit more money and found myself a girl, life was not bad, I saw cent by cent of my savings filling up my bank account.
I proposed, and then found a small apartment and couldn’t be happier, my life was happening the way it was supposed to, until the day it wasn’t. I lost my job, and slowly I ate my savings away, lost the apartment, the fiancé, and moved my boxes again to a small bed in a shared room in a tiny apartment.
My ex-fiancé tried so many times to get back, but I couldn’t continue with our relationship if I had no money for our future, she was doing well, and I became penniless, it was too much for me. My parents then invited me back for the weekend. I accepted the invitation, I would have three full meals a day and a house with heating.
I took a long hot shower, and slept in my childhood bed trying to understand how everything had gone wrong. Mom brought me hot milk and cookies, I ate looking out and almost choked not seeing the tower. The mountain was invaded by bad investment property, soulless and in shades of gray and brown. Gisulf. It hit me, I was older than Gisulf, five years older and a failure.
Rolling in bed, unable to sleep, it was weird to have my stomach this full and sleep in a room not taken over by black mold. The window was opened, I felt grateful watching the sky from my bed. My mind would race, why did I lose my job, and my house, and my woman, would Gisulf be still in there?
I dressed two layers of clothes and put rainy boots, it was drizzling outside, and looked at myself in the mirror, with my hair thinning on the temples and a full beard, if my friend was there, would he recognize an old and beaten up me that worked shifts just like in my teens?
As I went up, I wondered if the path from my house to the tower had been difficult, or if I had put on some weight, I did not remember the struggle to put on foot after another, my pants were loose, I guess I lost weight. Maybe I was just aging. The tower was gone, I couldn’t believe how they could demolish a relic from the past, I guess the builders were friends with the mayor, as usual.
“Gisulf, Gisulf” I sat on the small wall dividing the three houses that looked like shoe boxes and tried to make peace, perhaps it was for the best, he had been prisoner of the tower for centuries, if not thousands of years, he was finally resting. I had lost my friend ghost too.
I was leaving when I heard a muffled sound, and under all the rubble from the construction waste, I saw my friend, Gisulf, with his hand peeking out. “As you promised” he said touching my face. “You are a man, you are older than me!” I felt the cold air of his presence.
“What about the tower?” I lit up a cigarette, and he watched me in surprise, he had never seen one.
“The foundation is under the house. Progress, I guess. How is life? Are you a father?”
“I live in a basement and I have nothing. You lost your tower, we are unlucky, aren’t we?”
“You are young and alive, look at me, without my tower to haunt, what will I haunt, tourists?”
“We still have a theory to try, remember?”
“I don’t have my tower anymore, why not?”
I lit the house on fire, where the base of the tower was located, it started small, burning the plastic and paper around the construction, I had a bottle of something strong, I danced with Gisulf, until the fire hit the beams, and the fire spread all over the house. I was drunk, Gisulf screamed, laughed, until he noticed the smoke was too thick.
“Go home Serafino, go home now!” But I didn’t, I didn’t want to. I watched my only friend, Gisulf, trying to convince me, crying and begging. He then sat amidst the fire, and the fire licked him away. “You will die, my friend…”
“That is my tower now.” I watched him fading away. I finally had a place rent free.
