The Fool was swept into the strong ocean currents. He was dragged across rocks. He could see land in the distance, when he could get his head above the surf, but his strength was getting sapped fighting the currents. He was having a hard time getting breaths of air. Maybe the Devil was protecting him.
He let go. The current took him. He still floundered, but not as bad as before. He could keep his head above the surface of the water, mostly, and get deep gulps of air.
When he found a rock that jutted out of the water he climbed onto it, exhausted. He lied there under the stormy clouds. A faint spot of sun was trying to fight through, but the clouds were swelling and darkening.
The Fool sat up and saw, in the distance, a giant tower. It sat on an island surrounded by the sea. He could see a strip of land on the horizon beyond. The Tower was stone, with a crown on top. It almost glowed. The Fool felt a twinge of hope as he inspected the Tower from afar. He wanted to be in the Tower.
The Fool thought of his lack of a home. He had lived places before, but he’d never felt like any of those places were home. He fantasized sometimes of having a place to keep his stuff, to want to go back to after a long wander. He wanted a place like this tower.
Figures in the windows were moving around. The waves lapped at the rocks the Tower sat on. It looked peaceful and safe.
The sky continued to darken. The Fool stood up and noticed a small rowboat at the bottom of his rock. He climbed in and decided he’d row over to the Tower, so he untied the boat and pushed off. Once he got the oars locked, he started rowing towards the Tower.
The sea began to swell. Rain began to fall. The Fool thought he’d better hurry up, since a storm was clearly brewing. The boat was being lifted by the turbulent surf. A wave picked it up and dashed both it and the Fool back on the rock the Fool had started on. The Fool scrambled up the rock to get away from the boiling sea.
He looked at the Tower and wished he could get there somehow. He would be dry, warm, and safe from this tempest. The rain was falling hard now, coming from the side and hitting the Fool hard. The wind was blowing and threatening to carry him out to sea. He could see the flicker of a cozy warm fire in the windows of the Tower.
A lightning bolt flashed in front of the Fool. It tore off the roof of the Tower.
Bricks and mortar exploded into the air. They showered down on the huge waves that beat at the base of the Tower. Another bolt shot into the Tower’s open top and fire blew out the windows and blasted up into the sky. People dove from the windows only to be dashed on the rocks below.
The Tower fell over and into the ocean. There was nothing there anymore – just the ocean. A place of so much hope and promise for the Fool was so easily destroyed. The inhabitants erased as well.
The Fool sat on that rock for a thousand years – or maybe it was one night – but the sea began to recede. After a long time it had vanished altogether, and a desert lay before him instead. The Fool started walking.
He got to the remains of the Tower. It had a foundation of about seven or so feet that had stayed standing. Bricks lay everywhere. He saw the skeletons of the people that had jumped out of the burning Tower, which was now a ruin.
The Fool walked on and felt melancholy. He had seen so much destruction. He didn’t even know the inhabitants of this Tower, but felt sick with grief from watching them jump to their deaths. Still, all he could do was walk on. There was no longer a Tower there.
He wandered through the desert. Dead fish laid everywhere. Then the plants began to change. He could see palm trees. The sun was getting white-hot and baking the sandy ground below him. It was burning his feet.
He danced over to shadows, when he could find them, to let his feet cool. He was getting blisters. He scanned the horizon and saw what looked like an oasis, so he started for there. He hoped it wasn’t a mirage, but everything in this world is a delusion.