[Inspect, Expectation]

  Before I was looking at this paperwork with an eye towards finding out where granddad had gone. Now unless I found a blatant note saying I went here. I’m going to assume he is in the eastern tower. So the point of going through all these papers is to try and discover any information that he had regarding that tower. Next time I enter the tower I want to be as prepared as possible, I won’t run in, in a crop top and cutoffs.

  Once I have more stamina, I’ll get a go knapsack ready, it’ll need food, water, pen and paper, penlight, my cell phone, compass if I can find one around, matches, lighter, A hoodie and what about the pith helmet, I haven’t had the time or energy to examine it and it’s the only tangible proof that I’ve been inside the tower. When it comes right down to it the main reason that I bothered going to retrive it, was because granddad had one just like it. He used to let me wear it when I was a kid and would run off into the woods here at Tregaron. Granddad was always taking pictures with his cell, and you don’t need service to take pictures so why the sketches. Two theories I can think of off the top of my head. One he forgot his cell or battery died, two cell phones won’t function at all in the tower. So I can’t just depend on an app that will work, like the compass or light. So I’ll bring low tech backups.

  Boy, last night was great. This is not the time to review romantic encounters, focus, damned ADHD. Well I haven’t meditated in days or weeks depending if you use the tower calendar or Tregaron calendar. I’ll head to the maze first then to gramp’s office to verify that there is no laptop.

  I already know he didn’t have a desktop. No monitor or other accessories were on the desk and while he could bring a laptop into the tower, it’d make zero sense to bring a desktop. If I don’t find the laptop he either has it with him or the more likely scenario he just uses his cell for everything.

  Just focus for now on the maze. Amazingly I did, and I went straight to the center this time. The countless times I’d done this in my youth must have left an impression on my muscles. After failing to do it the other day, maybe my focus improved a little. I’m not thinking of her breasts bouncing up and down, until I start listing my accomplishments of things I did not get distracted by. If I just focused on breasts I have a feeling that I’d never get distracted, I mean what could be more interesting. Just think of the physics, a breast in motion remains in motion. I’ll bet old Newton wasn’t thinking of an apple at all. If he wasn’t gay he probably came up with the whole gravity idea, by watching a well endowed milk maid run across the field. What goes up must come down.

  Aya was just standing up, when I arrived in the center.

  “Aya, I have two questions for you. First, has anyone ever used breasts as a focus of meditation.”

  She laughed, “Well most people will admit that they use a flickering candle flame, I’ve never heard of anyone admitting that they use breasts, they might while just not admitting it. You’d have to find a woman who’d be willing to jiggle her breasts while you meditate on them.”

  “Right the whole entropy thing, that’s too bad, I just felt that I’d never lose focus if they were my focus. Second question: has anyone ever brought back anything physical from another world?”

  “No definitely not, the other worlds are spiritual. I believe that they exist either in a person's brain or in their soul if you believe in such a thing. Either way they are immaterial thus it would be impossible to bring something material back from an immaterial plane / world / reality.”

  “I think Granddad brought you here because reality and another world meet here on occasion and he wanted to know everything that you know about it.”

  “Why would you think that Jaq?”

  “Because Tregaron has two towers, the western tower, that is always here in this world. The second tower is the eastern tower that comes and goes.”

  I told her the whole story my arrival and I see the eastern tower, it’s disappearance, the song luring me to the portal or gate, the collapsing bridge that seemingly collapsed for no reason, a red brick path, a vast desert, a scarecrow where one didn’t belong with a pith helmet just like granddads, a completely featureless castle except doors a giant could pass through and a living dragon doornocker. The stairs with different views of granddad in the past, I was placed in the same scenario, I ate from a plate of peas that I think really were the eye of Horus, my future self.

  “Wow Jaq, that is a lot to take in. I’d love to see the helmet to hold it.”

  “Sure, come to my room later, I’ll show it to you. I haven’t even examined it really, I was pretty out of it when I put it on in the desert.”

  “I’ll meditate with you if you don’t mind, you just gave me a ton of information to mull over, where better than here to consider it.”

  “Alright let’s get to meditating, I still have a lot I need to get done today.”

  I hope I did the right thing, granddad didn’t fully trust her and had never explained that the tower actually existed. But she seems genuine to me. With all the traveling I do, hitchhiking you learn to follow your instincts. If she’d stopped and offered me a ride I wouldn’t hesitate. Besides I need help, she seems to know a lot more about this than I do. If I don’t get help and grandad dies because I’m too slow finding him, it’ll be me that killed him. It’s better to ask forgiveness and all that. Let’s get him home then he can be as mad as he wants.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  ***

  I picked up the pith helmet to hand it to her when I noticed the writing just above the sweatband, C.H.H.

  “Look at this, this was granddads, he wouldn’t just leave this lying about.”

  I showed her the helmet, turning it over so she could see the initials.

  “He very well might have Jaq, he might have left it for you to show you the path to take.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Having had just a little over an hour to analyze what you told. I think the tower is either a sentient machine or lifeform or is just a machine being controlled by a sentient being.”

  “Why do you think it’s sentient?”

  “I think the tower is a spiritual path you follow, it lured you in, song, then cut off all retreat, bridge, a literal path to follow, red brick, a signpost I have passed this way, pith helmet, a complete nondescript castle, a goal, the dragon’s stared into your soul to see if you were ready for the next stage, a test or a video game level boss, the stairs, a teacher, the eyes and tattoo, explain peas, the peas, exit to the next level or as soon as you ate the peas you entered the white light. For a lot of spiritual traditions that is as far as a human can go spiritually, it represents heaven. The Tibetans wrote a whole book about it “The Tibetan Book of the Dead” where you have a Tibetan monk bedside when you are dying and they direct you how to get to the light. Other traditions think of the light as the resting place before rebirth. I think if you go back into the tower you’ll be reborn, something fundamental about you will shift, because you’ll want it to at least in the moment when you are given the choice.”

  “So you think I should go back in.”

  “What I think doesn’t matter, I expect you’ll go back in after your grandfather, even if I said right now not to. You do realize he’s the lure, the trap. I believe that your grandfather could walk out of there right now if he wanted to. If he’s trapped in there, it’s something he wants or wants more of. Desire is the problem. A monk signs up for the monastery because he wishes / desires to attain enlightenment. The paradox is you can’t attain enlightenment if you desire enlightenment. Desire keeps you stuck in one place. That is why Zen monks work with paradoxes during meditation. Koan’s like the ‘what is the sound of one hand clapping.’”

  “So desire even for good is bad?”

  “You desire to get your grandfather out of the tower, even if he wants to remain in the tower, Yes?”

  “Yes I suppose I do.”

  “So you would impose your will over his will, yes I say that is bad. I say the only time to impose your will over someone else is if they are actively hurting another being including themselves and even then you must proceed with the utmost caution, you have to be one hundred percent certain that it’s not some desire of your own that’s making you intervene.”

  “So if I just go in and tell him that he’s missed here and we wish he’d return or if he needs help returning and I can help just ask for it. That would be okay right, I'm not imposing my will at all. Just offering a choice.”

  “Sure but what if he’s fallen in love with a goddess and is waiting on her hand and foot, and she treats him poorly. What do you do then?”

  “I’d repeat my initial argument and add in the poor way he’s being treated, asking again for him to return. If he refuses again, I’d say I understand, please think over what I’ve said and if you change your mind and I can help let me know. That has to be acceptable Aya, that’s leaving the entire choice up to him.”

  “Yes I think it is but you’ll also have to be willing to walk away. But what about you, if the tower is designed or sentient or being controlled by a sentient being to lead the person who enters along a spiritual path do you want to follow that path?”

  “I don’t know, it’s something I’ve never considered. I’m ninety nine point nine into infinity that when we die, when the brain is dead, consciousness ends. So spending a significant amount of time pursuing something like that seems a waste. Of course people waste their time left in myriad ways and if it makes someone happy doing that great go for it. My problem with religions is people trying to impose theirs on me or even worse onto the government.”

  “What about the soul?”

  “I think soul is just another word for consciousness. Thanks for talking this out with me, and you are right. When I’m a little stronger and I can get in I will be going back. But I had never considered letting my granddad decide for himself if he wants to stay in the tower. Before without even thinking about it I’d have dragged him back here, so maybe that is one error I can avoid.”

  “Good if I can help with anything just let me know Jaq.”

  “Thanks.”