Tower of Endings

Fox hung from the railing with one hand, trying to catch a clear grip with the other as his savage opponent chiseled deep into his knuckles with his fingernails. The pain was sharp, but he had to bear it. From that position there were only two possible outcomes, an arduous ascent into a battle on the platform or a long drop to injury and defeat.

In the beginning, the two boys had been friends. Fox and Michael had spent a few seasons together running through the forests and the hills, hunting, fishing, and fighting imaginary foes along with a few others from the surrounding area.

Fox and his brother had moved from their suburban home to a new life in a rural area far to the north and Michael was one of the first to welcome them. They had gone to church together and lived relatively close to each other; Michael’s family had even been part of the group that had helped Fox’s family move into their new home. Their adventures were many and their times together were frequent and fun. Michael’s father was a metalworker who had access to unusual resources which allowed him to build his son all manner of interesting playthings, including a monumental tower topped with a wide platform accessible only through a spiral staircase running up the middle of the central support column which opened a hatch in the platform floor. To the young boys it was the ultimate place from which to launch their adventures – a watchtower that was impenetrable from the outside, towering high above the surrounding grounds amidst a forest of tall hardwood trees.

For a long time they pursued their varying interests and improved their lofty base of operations, with Fox eventually accepting a role as the de-facto leader of the group. As had been the case in the past, Fox repeatedly proved himself to be the most intrepid of the little band, leading them on adventures both dangerous and profitable. They had walked the riverbed together, swam the lake together, rebuilt an abandoned boat together, and together rode their bikes to the end of all the roads they knew. However, this was an age of great inner turmoil for boys who, upon reaching their teens, would soon begin to pursue their roles as young men. As such, Fox’s fame as the heroic leader of the club was a fact that began to irritate young Michael, as did the fact that Fox carried with him such unanimous support from his brother and from the few adults with whom they had regular dealings. Over time, this seed of irritation cultured and manifested itself as a sprout of bitterness. With each new interaction, this sprout grew larger, spreading its roots and maturing to blossom into jealousy.

For a relatively long time, this second in command carried this jealousy unbeknownst to his friend Fox, who visited his home and laughed and joked with him and his family on regular occasion. It may have gone on forever this way, had they not decided to upgrade the tower. The varying designs fueled a debate which eventually ignited the volatile garden of jealousy that Michael had been cultivating for such a long time.

The argument was loud and long and Michael ended it by sealing himself in the tower and announcing that he no longer had any use for Fox or his brother. The tower was his and the age of democracy on his property had come to an end.

Rather than submit to the insult of this sudden change of policy, a confused and infuriated young Fox took it upon himself to prove that the tower was not a defense that could stand against him – and that Michael’s hold on it afforded him nothing.

It was well-known that Fox was not one at which to scoff when it came to a conflict between peers; even though he was not one to invite discord unnecessarily, he had even at his young age gained repute as one willing to exhaust every resource at his disposal for the sake of principle.

He attacked the tower for hours and was viciously bombarded by a seemingly endless barrage of pinecones from the stockpiles he and Michael had long since stored in baskets on the platform. He dodged and defended himself with an improvised shield, but was careful never to return fire. Instead he continued his futile attempts to open the locked steel door at the base of the giant supporting column. He hammered and pried, but somehow Michael had locked it from the inside. It appeared that Fox’s second had every intention of using the club’s complete defense strategy against him, but he was determined to succeed. Fox knew that if he continued, he would lose his right to freely access the tower and possibly create a rift between himself and his jealous friend; but his wrath only continued to grow as Michael’s continued attempts to thwart him began to wear at his pride. He had to break through the defenses and show that jerk that the tower was no prize and that having it did not make him a leader.

Fox fought the column until the rain of debris halted. As he had expected, Michael exhausted his ammunition in his frantic attempt to halt his enemy’s siege. He was defenseless, and the young former leader of what was once a club of good friends laid on with his real plan to take the tower.

Taking a thick piece of livestock rope and tying the end to a piece of timber about 3 feet in length, he moved to the outer edge of the platform as it hung suspended 20 feet above him. He threw the wood up to and over the railing along with a coil of rope, pulling it tight as fast as he could in order to avoid Michael’s inevitable attempt to catch it and toss it back to the ground.

Michael saw the line come up, and frantically attempted to grasp the piece of timber just as the rope tightened and pulled it just out of reach. It caught the side rail of the platform and flipped over the edge, swinging dangerously close to his face. He ran to the side and cackled down at Fox, who was already engaged in tossing the line a second time.

On the second attempt, the angry boy on the ground threw the chunk of timber like a javelin, wrapped tightly in several coils of rope. It passed between the third and fourth rungs of the heavy steel railing, nearly hitting the boy a second time.

Michael stumbled back as the chunk of wood clattered to the deck of his highly defended embattlement. He rose to his feet in shock as it rapidly unraveled as it was pulled back to the rail, where it lodged between the parallel bars through which it had initially passed. He rushed to the edge to loose the board from where it had taken hold, but found it firmly fixed by the weight of his adversary, who was already ascending.

He scrambled to the toolbox, but found nothing that could quickly sever the kind of rope Fox was using to penetrate his impregnable fortress. At the bottom of the box that he and Fox had prepared in the event they had to deal with a possible siege, he found a pair of school scissors. They were barely sharp enough to cut cardboard, but they would have to do. Fox was not the fastest climber in his school, but would surely reach the rail swiftly.

Michael rushed to the edge again, rapidly sawing at the thick rope supporting Fox’s weight as he ascended. He was frantic, out of ammunition, and was about to face a powerful adversary on even ground. He had to get through the rope before Fox reached the rail.

As the rope began to fray, Michael called out, “I’m cutting this rope! You should give up, or you’ll fall and break your legs!”

There was no answer on Fox’s end, but only a few seconds after that sentence left his mouth, a hand rose up and gripped the bottom bar of the rail. Michael paused. The other hand rose with some apparent effort to grip the second bar and the plank dropped to the deck. Fox was at the rail and there appeared to be nothing he could do to deter him; it seemed that a fight was imminent.

Fox climbed to the top rung of the rail and was in the midst of pulling himself up when the timber he had used to ascend smashed into his left hand. The sudden pain almost caused him to let go of the rail, but he held fast. The angry boy could see his former friend raising the board for a second hit, so he released his left hand and grabbed the rope, pulling it sharply and with all the force he could muster. The sudden shock of the rope tugging from the center of the plank yanked it from Michael’s unprepared grip and the weight of the rope dangling over the side aided in dragging the improvised weapon off the platform and to the ground.

With the piece of wood and all of the pinecones gone from Michael’s arsenal, Fox forced his fatigued arms to resume the ascent. The only thing keeping him going was the fear of falling and the need to show himself better than his former second’s challenge.

Frustrated with Fox’s irrational tenacity, Michael tossed out the unwritten rules of childhood fair play and gouged his fingernails deep into the knuckles of Fox’s uppermost hand. Fox pulled up and swatted at him with his left hand before gripping the top rung and attempting to gain a foothold on the deck. Michael could see in Fox’s narrow gaze that he had no intention of giving up. The bleeding scratches in his right hand seemed only to make him more determined.

Desperate to end the battle and save face, Michael committed a taboo among schoolboys, slapping Fox in the face and immediately going to work on his hands with the scissors. Even with all of the interesting encounters Fox had faced up to then, he had yet to feel the pain of a former ally carving into his flesh with a dull metal blade. It was an egregious crime that kids of his kind never even considered, regardless of the circumstances. Knives and scissors were adult weapons designed to permanently injure or kill people.

Fox was stunned by the sudden deterioration of the situation, but he had to finish his advance before the frantic defender seriously injured him. The pain was brutal but brief as Fox gained a foothold and vaulted over the rail onto the platform within seconds of Michael’s final onslaught.

The two stood face to face. The taller, older Fox bleeding from both hands and panting from a grueling ascent and the stocky, young Michael red-faced and sweating from his last failed attempt to thwart Fox’s incursion. Before Fox could do or say anything, his defeated rival stood on his toes and screamed into his face, “GET OUT!”

Fox looked down at the backs of his hands and raised a particularly gory laceration to his mouth. He strolled wearily to the hatch and unlocked it, taking his knuckle out of his mouth again and looking at it, “You should be ashamed of yourself, you coward,”

Michael stomped up to him, stopping just out of reach and screamed again, “GET OUT OF HERE AND NEVER COME BACK!”

Before he had finished, Fox was already descending the stairs. His last words to the boy who had once been his friend were, “Don’t worry,” and with that, he closed the hatch behind him, descended to the ground level, and walked home.

In this story we see a new side of the main Character’s personality as he plays a more ambivalent role, facing a friend after a jealous argument. Since both the setting and the characters have changed since the last adventure, the reader can see that Fox’s charisma in his earlier years did not translate as successfully into his new environment as it had in his old neighborhood. Once his family moved to a new location, the main character was forced to carry on without his former allies and the comforts of his past reputation. From here the reader might expect to see the main character less willing to form new friendships with the sparse candidates in his new locale.