Tower

~ a short story

The tower would stand as long as he could will it to.

He glided along spiral stairs, robe swept against supersteel sheen. Stepped into the foyer to sight those arcane runes on the dome. Clock struck zero. Odin touched down on his shoulder and gave a coo. Pulses began. Stained glass started to shudder. Well-worn carpet path guided him to desks and walls and windows; his instruments twirled and spiraled and sang. He placed a sequence into the touchscreens. Satellite comms hummed with updates. Arashiyama sizzled on the sticks. One moon revealed its crescence through the cloudform. Distant starsigns sighted down the zagging mirrorworks on the exterior walls, sourced into a supercomputer.

The tower rattled as he reached its zenith.

The tower reconfigured around the secret no-man as he made his walk, separated and rebuilt its core dialectics as he read his books, fed his raven, and routined out his nightly beddown, all the while completing the calculation on the rest of the Universe.

The tower stood as the last bastion against entropy’s victory, stealing away some of the Madness before it could reach Man. ~