If we could have seen it the eastern sky glowed rouge with the coming of the sun and the forest was alive with the apricot voice of a thousand song birds. Gomez and I leaned back in rickity lawn chairs, aluminum artifacts complete with broken straps from a bygone era, observing the comings and goings of the waking village. We tortured our taste buds with tasteless black coffee while we waited for that buck toothed weasel Snow.
I was still stuck in a funk from last night's debacle. Snow saw my one weakness and I felt vulnerable every time his gaze came my way. I felt he was looking into my inner workings as if he knew something about me that I didn't. And dinner was a disaster. Gomez, the social butterfly that he is, had a grand old time, ate heartily and engaged in much speculative conversation. Sometimes I envy that guy, good with people, eat anything. Me, I picked at my meal morosely. I needed real food, the kind that my gut was used to, greasy processed gruel that sticks to your ribs and bungs up your internal processes. No wonder I'm not at my best. Too much fiber would send any human off the deep end. Sure my microbiome is a non-functional mess, but it's worked for me so far.
I was mired in a meditative state gazing at the monolith that stood before me.
The tower reminded me of the cardboard tube that you are left with from a spent roll of toilet paper. It was perfectly tubular. Except for a brief spell around noon when the sun floated directly overhead the bottom was a perpetual shroud of shadow that gave me the willies. Somehow the tower's shadow was darker than that of the jungle while the top of the tower, towering above the jungle canopy and exposed forever to the wind and the elements, was a continuous glow that mimicked the colour of fire. Perplexingly the light of the equatorial sun diffused down the inner workings of the structure providing a god like radiance that never extended beyond it's glossy surface. It was a strange contrast where shadow met light, neither one daring to impinge upon the other like a felon and his moll engaging in their last chat as she is about to be locked up behind bars for a crime she didn't commit.
"What do you think that thing is made of, Gome? Its surface is completely clear and slippery smooth, like polymeric plastic or some type of epoxy resin reinforced with invisible carbon fiber. It looks to be a mold, not structural like the Eiffel Tower."
"Jim, I'm an atheist not a geologist, but I swear on the wings of the Angel Gabriel that that thing is one solid crystal hollowed out in the center like some kind of alien hornets nest. Look at it, even the stairs appear to be formed in place.
Indeed. The staircase spiraled up alongside the edge of the exterior wall. There were no visible means of support. There were no handrails and from where they sat they could see workers trundle up and down in a steady stream of activity. From a safety standpoint those stairs were an accident waiting to happen. Their insurance rates must me sky high.
"Jim, I'm not a podiatrist, I'm a fighter pilot, but what does it remind you of?
"A roll of toilet paper."
"DNA Jim, a strand of DNA. A spiral coil. The basic building block of life."
Gomez was right. I've seen hand drawn facsimiles in picture books and the similarities were eerie.
"Beautiful, isn't it amigos?" The voice startled them. They both turned. No one was there.
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