We began laying the foundations in late March of 20?9. This was nearly ten years after the final of those with means had fled for other worlds. They were never to return. The rest of us were left to our own devices on a doomed and squalid planet. We sat quietly and thought for months and months without end. As a collective, we were sad and lonely, despite still populating the world in billions. One of our many voices suggested that a cause should unite us forgotten scraps. Another marveled at the hulking cities, now totally hollow. All was such a hollow shell. Thus the catalysts to our unity began: We would build The Tower.
The Tower would reach toward the heavens, it was determined. We left what remained of our homes to focus our entire efforts on The Tower’s construction. Whichever great minds survived put their heads, hearts, and hands together to create a blueprint for The Tower, one with its first floor in the dust and its 785th floor in the high stratosphere. The dead earth was razed as we toiled on the broken land. Sourced materials from yesteryear were our building blocks, calloused hands gripping dead stone. Piece by piece, we all brought The Tower upward from the ground toward the skies.
Each floor had rooms and doors and windows and wheels. Soon, every one of us was housed within the project itself. All of us! A network of shafts and steps allowed us to carry the materials from forgotten cities up through the esophagus of The Tower. Construction only went further. We reached the 785th floor in no time and decided to continue upward. The pursuit of The Tower gave us purpose. Language had meaning within The Tower. Scripture took on a lyrical melody within the very fibers of the building. The shades of green below began to seem less strange as we rose further away. Our lives began and ended within The Tower. Generations were born into the work of art, culture, salvation, and soul. Higher viewpoints looked out into the cold of the mid-mesosphere, yet still, the lower ones saw the earth from whence we came. One level had floor-to-ceiling windows that were 50 feet tall, simply for viewing the world we left and the world above. During a total solar eclipse – that we had wrongly assumed meant certain doom – we cried and wept and hugged as we awaited a fulfilling demise. When the event horizon passed, we only cried and wept and hugged more. A stronger emotional bond had overtaken all within The Tower. Worldly harmony had been achieved to some extent, just 10,912 stories (and counting!) off the ground.
Some even believed that a god would come to an upper-level floor someday, knock on our friendly door, and ask to come inside. Sure, we would all say in unison, as long as you take your shoes off! We have some coffee brewing, make yourself right at home. And maybe, just maybe, they would.