The Falling Tower

The Falling Tower.

A Story Under (Ceaseless) Construction or;

A Way to Come to Terms with Nietzsche and Derrida

---

This text’s central axis is a falling tower. This text can be thoroughly represented by this said construction; its Paragraphs being its walls and its floors, its battlements, and its foundations; the Title its little roof. Throughout the text there will appear parentheses, square brackets etc. which will assist us in the re- / de- construction of the dilapidated building, like ladders and scaffoldings are being utilized in genuine structures. Different colours will finally be used to indicate the period in which the writing took place, to signify thus the passage of time.

22/09/2022 – 05/11/2022

06/11/2022 – 03/12/2022

10/01/2023 –

---

A final remnant of a glorious epoch, part of a vast fortress which exists no more, the tower was slowly, purposefully, crumbling. Apart from its disintegrating state, you can still see it rising high above any tree or manmade construction. It had resisted the armies of the South many times, and it had succumbed to their military advances even more; the colours on the flags on its flagpole ever-changing. Destroyed in the siege of 1478 it was rebuilt anew, its slim, round demeanor giving way to a more robust, heavily angled one. It was the pride of the realm for many years, its jewel, its symbol, its protector.

Sitting on a stone wall, having the luxury of time and the tranquility of an early morning, I began to meditate upon the falling tower. Of its heroic past, many tomes have been written, overflowing with names and dates, battles, coats of arm, strategic schemes and architectural designs. The more spiritual – or some would say superstitious – of them wanted apparitions having a claim to the place, then and now, and unworldly lights illumining its black windows in the night. This idea prompted me into visualizing some of its more recent residents; those that did not have to do anything with a knight’s gallantry, a siege, or the politics of the fiefdom, and were probably not endowed with much, or any of the region’s history whatsoever; the only thing concerning them being their survival and prosperity. [Does this final remark assist the argument or perplex the thing?]

These people, my flickering creations, found their way to this desolate – apart from the tower – place and, weary as they were, thought that it would serve them as a good spot to set camp for the night. Out of respect – or out of plain fear[1] – they did not try to step into the tower. The tower protected them from the wind in the night and it provided its thick shadow during the day. Thus, they set into building their little village around it. The ancient monument provided them with stones, which they found scattered around it. [historical fragments] They were gathering them with their eyes cast to the ground and they were thanking the tower for its benevolence. They soon grew into not fearing the tower; they built their houses close to it, identified themselves with it, took pride on it and marveled on its height and elegance despite the fact that it was crumbling to pieces. They even created their own myths surrounding it. It reminded them of old, grandiose times, and that’s why they respected it; it provided for the present and was furnishing their future and they venerated it. Through its loose, dislodged old pieces, heavily laden with history, it created the present, provided for the future, while retaining its past.

Does it really, though, in the situation described above, manage to retain its past? Many would claim that the unsophisticated peasants who found the opportunity to build their hovels and pigsties around the tower, ignorant of its former magnificent history, having on top of that the impertinency of creating absurd myths around it, are not to be taken seriously since they lack significant historical facts. Some would say that it is through – and only through – these solid factualities that we are able to recount the past, assess the present and, possibly, predict the future.

[Can talk about someone coming at telling them the official history of the place; what would have happened then? Would they dispel their own myths? Would they embrace only the official history or try to mingle it with their own myths with which they are more familiar with and they appreciate and probably identify themselves with and through these myths their whole identity and behaviour is reflected/projected?] -->

--> See now this old, lanky fellow approaching, his knee-bones producing a snapping sound with every step he takes. His shoulders seem to be extremely hunched forward and the paleness of his skin would excite many ghost stories enthusiasts. His black, long coat flutters in the morning breeze as he treads clumsily among the ferns, dragging behind him an unyielding poor donkey which, carrying a huge load of crates and square packages on its back, has sat down in its hindlegs in protest. He abruptly stops, fixes the round spectacles that sit upon the tip of his bird-like nose and, stroking irritably his goaty beard starts giving a long lecture on the subject of impertinency and the importance of duty to the rebel creature. Now this man is a historian, on his course to one of his monumental pilgrimages. He visits this imposing historical artifact and will eventually find out that, not only the plebeians have turned the area around the tower into their home, but they have on top of that defiled its historical significance by distorting the facts and interposing their pagan beliefs, creating an imprecise abstraction of intermingling notions of history and myth. Driven by his instincts – endowed to him by delving so much into the past – he will now definitely be repulsed and will try to correct the wrongdoings they have done to the historicity of such important a place.

A cow; somewhere in the distance; munching grass. It looks at the historian approaching the villagers and senses the tension building between them. For a flitting moment the film that obstructs her vision falls apart, and she feels the urge to say something to them; to reconcile them. As she opens her mouth to utter her single word of wisdom though, her memory fades away; the fog returns, and she feels blissful in her own realm of forgetfulness. She nods her head, and tears from the ground another imbued with the morning dew lump of grass.

I can now see on the pale features of the historian a mixture of disgust and excitement as he is unloading the donkey’s burden and pours out of his trunks and packages his most precious books. He spreads them on the village’s green and everyone gathers round to marvel at the novelties. Seldom such peddlers as this queer little fellow visit these far-off lands. It is like a fair to them; to him is of utmost seriousness and importance. The historian opens his intimidating books and starts narrating his stories starting from too far back, showing them portraits of women and men, explaining coats of arms, battles and battle tactics, alliances, assassinations, intrigues, and more and more politically associated trifles. Now, even from that far I can see the perplexed and to some extent mesmerized faces of the peasants. The shadow of the tower moves into a semicircle, engulfing them for some time. The shadows of the trees start growing longer and longer while the crowd is gradually getting smaller. Weeds need to be torn out of the ground, the fire in the hearth needs to be fed and the infant cries for its lullaby. The historian’s fierce oration suddenly ceases; his eyes now strain to make out the letters and he turns around, only to find the village’s Fool. [Tom must say something witty here!]

[The historian, as well as the peasants, are tugging behind them a ball and chain, being unable to break the links and set themselves free. This burden is the curse (as Nietzsche would have it) of memory. The peasants carry with them their past, their traditions, their religion and myths, no matter how dense this past and this history in general is. The historian, apart from dragging along his past, has added more burden on his shoulders; namely, the burden of recorded, factual history]. -->

--> The historian decides to spend the night in Tom’s cabin by the bridge; what else could he do. He gives lectures every afternoon when the peasants spread their colourful tablecloths on the ground and sit around, sometimes under the shadow of a tree, sometimes beneath the tower’s cold shadow to share their food and rest from working the land. Apart from the historical facts of the eminent ancestors of the place and their remarkable feats, the historian, seeing to the villager’s advancement, talks to them about things that are more meaningful to their wellbeing. He gave a talk about irrigation systems and lavatories; about under what conditions, if stored way into the ground, food becomes frozen, and thus lasts longer; [Write more “scientific” stuff] [They can tell him about medicinal herbs, myths, religious things. He can also take part into their “pagan” rituals and after all see that its fun! etc]

One sunny afternoon, while the peasants were gathered around a great oak to rest for a while from ploughing the fields, the historian, grabbing the opportunity, surrendered again into one of those trance-like states – which were so common now to every bystander – talking incessantly and with fervor about the importance of history. Now, something amidst the crowd slowly commenced making its way towards the historian and the peasants, perceiving that movement, hurriedly made way. A short, hunched old lady, garbed in gray robes and having her pure white, long hair loose on her shoulders appeared from the opening amid the crowd and, balancing herself on a wooden stick proceeded towards the rambling lanky figure of the historian.

‘And what about Dave?’ said the old lady with a croaky voice, but the Historian, lost in his visions of grandeur did not hear her.

‘What about Dave?’ shouted again the old crone but still the Historian did not hear a thing.

‘Oi! Lanky!’ said the old lady, now evidently outraged and poked the Historian on his ribs with her stick.

The Historian’s twaddle stopped abruptly, and he turned – a disdainful look on his face – to meet the calm, slightly aggravated face of the old lady.

‘What!’ he asked, apparently irritated.

‘What about DAVE!’ said again the old lady and with a chorus the peasants joined her: ‘Yes! What about Dave?!’

‘Who in the Nine Circles of Hell is Dave?’ returned the Historian to the crowd and he immediately recognized his mistake. The peasants’ faces glimmered as they finally understood that the seeming all-encompassing wisdom of the Historian is limited. In the Historians features – although he resolutely tried to hide it – you could see the reflection of the awareness of his imminent defeat and he remember a stanza from a poem he did not quite like:

They made themselves a fearful Monument!

The Wreck of old opinions – thing which grew,

Breathed from the birth of Time: the Veil they rent,

And what behind it lay, all Earth shall view.

But Good with Ill they also overthrew,

Leaving but ruins, wherewith to rebuild

Upon the same foundation, and renew

Dungeons and thrones, which the same hour refilled

As heretofore, because Ambition was self-willed.

(Lord Byron, Child Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto III, 82)

The old lady now is carried by two young villagers and put on top of a rock; and from up there, where everyone could see her and she could see all, she started narrating the story of Dave the Wizard:

“It was during the years of the Great Turmoil when the shape of the Earth as we know it was still not thus formed; when parts of it fell under the dominion of Chaos, and amorphous, palpitating territories still existed. It required someone accustomed to the workings of entropy, someone who possessed high arcane knowledge to approach these realms where the forces of Chaos ruled to subdue and finally mold them into material; logical to the human perception forms. That man – if a creature as he can be called thus – was Dave, the Wizard. He approached the border of this throbbing mass and, while straining to keep his mental state intact, engraved runes on the ground and by uttering a powerful incantation he created matter out of Chaos. On these newly-claimed grounds he wanted to build his abode. Thus he mustered our ancestors and with their strength and his guidance they built this magnificent tower. There Dave the Wizard lived and prospered for a very long time; and with him the builders of the tower, who decided to stay in this newfound land and make it their home, thrived as well, since the magick of the Wizard made their crops to flourish and their cattle to grow in numbers. Until one day, claimed by this powerful urge to create more and more – which grows as a fever to human beings possessed by extravagant powers, and can sometimes lead them to demise and sorrow – Dave left the tower and his subjects; vanishing one day into thin air. From that time our people were roaming the continents, looking for Dave and for a meaning in their lives until – futile as these wondering turned out to be, returned again to our initial dwelling, to wait here for our patron's return”.

‘Absolute drivel!’ exclaimed the Historian but, seeing around him the eyes of the villagers looking with sheer joy at the old lady and realizing that they never looked at him that way, he got so angry, partly with himself and with the whole universe that he kicked a Doric column that happened to lie down on the grass near him so hard, that he sprained his ankle.

See him lying now on a pallet in the old woman’s house; bunches of herbs hung to dry dangling from the ceiling above his head, filling his oversized nostrils with mingling aromas. His unfortunate foot rests on a stuffed cushion but his hands move frantically as he is writing notes upon notes on his parchments. The old lady’s slippers are heard screeching on the wooden floor as she appears from around the corner, enthusiastically talking and carrying a steaming bowl of carrot soup which, placing it on a stool next to the Historian, goes along to her working bench and commences grounding herbs in a mortar, continuing with her narration without losing her train of thought. The Historian seems to have made a big discovery. The old lady seems to have discovered something as well. Let’s leave them for a while to savour their newfound bliss…

[The peasants start recognizing in themselves the Power of shaping the Present and therefore (to some degree) the Future through the utilization of knowledge which they continuously acquire, construct and deconstruct and finally incorporate into their actions, not having to entirely depend on others’ opinions and “established facts”. Most importantly though, they have discovered the method of reshaping the Past by incessantly reassessing it in the Present].

There’s a constant stir outside the old lady’s hut the last couple of days – didn’t I say to leave them alone for a while? – as the village’s young are coming in and out of it, carrying books, avidly discussing, even writing. *A nearly bald goose frantically flaps her wings around squawking as it is chased by a bunch of kids whose economic insight has developed as rapidly as the need for quills in the village* Tom is running among them, suddenly halting, sometimes assuming solemn postures and sometimes mischievous ones, uttering paradoxical sentences that the young people of the village – apart from amusing themselves with – seem to take seriously as well, noting them down on their parchments. Let them too in their kind of newfound bliss and hope – well, that’s another issue – that they will not mess everything up.

[Now, if my flittering creations finally became greedy and unappreciative – some would say dissident or profane – they would tear every single stone apart from that imposing structure, (as my ancestors did), leaving no trace from it apart from fragmental pieces of stone around their homes and walls encircling their fields and pastures. Would there be any past then? Would the history of the tower continue its course, not as a single entity – as an epicentre – but as a refraction of many histories projected on each stone; a fragment on a barn, a wall, a cottage]. -->

--> Alternate reality: Portentous leaden clouds started gathering above them. An occurrence solemnly expected by the old; to them it was natural. The young pretended not to heed them, and with heads cast low, brows strained with effort, hurried on tying knots, straining ropes, throwing hooks, until the lean, tall structure was entirely bound. 'Pull!'

[ENDING: I see a crow carrying a worm going to a recess on the tower where its nest is and feeds its little ones. Continuity, utility in future. Where is man in that? Must be part of it? P.B. Shelley would say yes; Mary would say Nope (?)]

[Against binary oppositions?? In the end I will definitely have to deal with Derrida! Shit..]

[List of Characters that can visit the Tower:

· Hermit

· Witch or Wizard

· Young/Ephebe (maybe as wizard)

· The Crow flying to its Nest

· The Fool (village’s idiot) (or the Hermit regarded by the others as Fool/idiot)

· A Scientist; maybe an Astronomer]

[1] Here “respect” can be connected to historical reverence and “fear” to superstition, which can be said that both are the derivatives of the monumentalization of history and tradition respectfully. (Or, I am just talking nonsense).