The Book of Disbelieving by David Lawrence Morse

Author:David Lawrence Morse
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sarabande Books

THE TOWER

The tower’s height—the source among our scholars of endless supposition—is the greatest of its marvels. Though the scholars’ calculations are highly sophisticated, they must be substantiated by conjectures from history: We as a people have been climbing the tower, at a minimum, for the past 236 years, which is when the first records were begun. In that time we have undertaken 80 ascents in which we climbed a total of 642 floors. Since each floor is 9 feet, we have ascended in that time a total of 5,778 feet. Most scholars agree that the evidence indicates that our people lived in the tower for at least four or five decades prior to the first recordkeeping, while some scholars argue for more, a long prehistory of peoples climbing for generations with no reckoning of their elevation or distance from the golden plain.

To figure the height of our tower, one must know not only how high we’ve climbed but how much farther we have to go, and here we have more debate. Some argue that our arrival will come soon, that with only four or five more ascents we will reach the pinnacle and the sovereign will step from the throne onto the golden plain. And following the sovereign, the retinue will climb from the tower to the plain, then the regents, then the scholars, then the marshals, then the men, the gardeners and boilers and haulers and potters and shoemakers and beekeepers and stockkeepers, then the women and children, and the great race of civilization will climb in one long unending line up the stairs to the plain, leaving behind our dens of darkness and hovels. It is always inspiring to hear such talk—but we must remind ourselves to be sensible and pay heed to the more conservative scholars who argue, drawing persuasively on formulas having to do with the shadow cast by the tower on the cloudscape and the changing trajectory of the sun, that we have another three hundred floors to ascend or more and that it will not be us but our descendants who step from the tower onto the plain.

These predictions can be sobering, and some have begun questioning why it should be our descendants and not we ourselves who are the first to enjoy the rewards of the golden plain. Why, many have asked, does the sovereign limit us to climbing only a few floors on each ascent? And why don’t we climb more frequently? We have averaged throughout our written history only about eight floors for each ascent, which occurs, on average, only approximately every three years. Not everyone climbs eight floors—only the most fortunate. Most are directed to climb less—in some cases, only a single floor. Children and the elderly have difficulty with the more ambitious climbs; so do fathers, struggling to carry all their family’s provisions in a single trip, which is all that is permitted—it wouldn’t do on such a momentous and topsy-turvy day to have everyone scurrying up and down the stairs, increasing the confusion a hundredfold.

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