For many evenings on my wheels I rode past a curious place tucked away by an obscure side street. It was a place I'd been recently diverted to by random circumstance: the presence of railroad construction along my usual riding route, and although it was a considerably longer trip the scenery and character of the side streets displayed an unmistakable appeal. I'd grown up in a small town, and those streets of my original home were much like these side roads tucked hidden away in this big city. Winding through them on my wheels reminded me of a more carefree past, before the financial and relational stresses of adulthood that fester within one's thoughts. These streets were an unexpected refrain from such pressures.
My first few trips I stuck to a basic detour around the railway construction, an efficient but rather dull journey as one side of the street was a gray concrete barrier wall obscuring the train tracks. I became bored of that quickly. Soon I began to plan a bit of extra time before departing so as to mix up my travel. I zigged and zagged through different streets each time, slowly unraveling the wonders and nostalgia I described earlier. There was a post office built of red bricks much like the one of my hometown, a parkette with an impressive tall wooden slide, and a little bright green bungalow almost like the one a childhood friend lived in. This sensation of new familiarity was at first odd but grew more comfortable with every trip. Soon these detours were the highlights of my days, their beginnings an inhalation of sweet flowery air and their finales a signal of a reality feeling increasingly bitter.
As I went deeper into these streets, my routes through them becoming more complex, I first came upon the curious place mentioned earlier: a stone tower about three levels high, propped up alone in a plot of earth on the corner of a short dead-end street. From my initial ride by I only caught the image of it within the corner of my eye yet the bizarreness of its presence poked my thoughts for some time. A few days later I passed by it again, taking a longer moment to look it over, only for the same bizarre feeling to intensify once I had left. For a short time afterwards I was uneasy, scared even, and I avoided the place entirely.
Feeling foolish at such a seemingly harmless apprehension however, I overcame my unease and eventually passed by this tower once again. I rode by slowly, so as to fully absorb and understand whatever sense had previously overtaken me, and indeed noticed something there I had not before: a single window at the highest level, overlooking the rest of the road. I thought little of the window again until my next trip along these deep side roads, when I noticed that this time the window appeared open, unlike the first occasion where it had certainly been shut. My imagination feasted upon this, conjuring up wild fantasies of a trapped damsel in distress just waiting for a gallant hero to free her from a horrible imprisonment. Perhaps she had extremely long hair even, so as to make for a climbing rope and an easy method of rescue.
I dreamed this dated fairy tale for some time as I passed by the tower, until one occasion on a rainy evening. My wheels were going slower than usual, both because of the slippery rain and of my neglect towards repairing my brakes. I came upon the road of the tower and peeked at the window as usual. Through the haze of falling raindrops I saw it, but this time something was obscuring the usual frame there: a shadow. I brought my wheels to a hasty stop and they replied by toppling me over the handlebars. As quickly as I could I scrambled to my feet, untangled myself from my chain and looked again to the window. The shadow was gone.
That evening did not settle with me. I went out for drinks with some old friends and hardly said a word to them. My mind was completely fixated upon the possibility of somebody actually being in that tower. Were they a prisoner there? Trapped because of a horrendous deed, or a completely innocent victim? Was it even a human being, or some colossal beast locked away for the safety of the entire world? Perhaps it was even something mundane, like some middle aged man who watched too much Wheel of Fortune, but my imagination would hardly consider something so banal. It had to be something magical, something treacherous. The feeling in my skin told me so every time I passed by the tower.
The entire next day I was completely obsessed with it. I avoided the road on my way to work in the morning, hoping that doing so would clear it from my thoughts. Instead doing so only intensified my curiousity, my desire to know exactly who or what was in there. Focusing upon anything else was impossible. I left work early, just as the sun was going down, and rode through the combination of side streets leading to that place. It was fresh darkness when I arrived, the tower especially glowing underneath a near full moonlight. I looked to the window, eager and terrified, and saw nothing. No shadow, no figure, just a single dark window. For an unsure while I waited, both hoping nothing and something would appear, until it became strongly clear enough that I'd likely fabricated what I had seen the day before. A trick of the light in the rain surely, the result of an imagination jumpy to make some interest of a dull life. I hopped back on my wheels and rode away.
'Come back.'
My wheels skidded to a stop. I didn't trust my mind to have not invented something like that, a brush of wind sounding like a voice to keep the fantasy alive. With a shake of my head at my persistent runaway thoughts I began to pedal again.
'Come back.'
I stopped again. This time the sound was louder than before, it was no trick of the breeze. I left my wheels by the street curb and wandered back to the road of the tower. There was still nothing visible in the window from this perspective, I had to get closer. As I wandered towards it that feeling in my skin I'd always had became stronger than ever before, like a signal I was about to do something monumentally heroic or idiotic. I came up to the tower itself and found a small door hidden from the road, unlocked. A deep breath and I pulled it open. I was in.
The inside was circular and small, large enough for just a stone stairwell that wrapped upwards along the wall with a tiny landing below. It wasn't particularly dark despite the absence of any candles or lamps, much of the illumination trickling down from a higher level. The smell was peculiar also, like freshly baked pie cooling on a windowsill. I sensed my destiny here was waiting up the stairway, so I began to climb. The light indeed became brighter but the smell particularly became stronger, the scent of pie now having a touch of cinnamon like my aunt would make when I was a child. There were just a few steps before the very top and I slowed my ascent, trying to peek over the top step in hopes of spotting what I was up against before it spotted me. All I could see was a single round room, entirely empty except for a single chair propped up near that infamous window. I climbed the final steps and walked towards it, only at that moment noticing a man sitting in it. He sensed my presence and stood up, stretched his arms and turned to me.
His face was unthinkably old, wrinkled, worn by the constant long passage of time. Upon seeing me, however, a youthful gleam was deposited in his mouth and in his eyes. The trench creases along every angle of his features surely made him unrecognizable to anyone who had ever known him, except I. I'd seen him in the mirror longer than memory can serve me. He stepped aside, inviting me to sit in the chair, a small contented smile hidden deep within his deeply lined face. I put my hand upon his chair, sat down, and he had never been here at all. Now it is only me, looking upon these side streets of my life that will always lead me to the window.
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