The fortress has risen

Tonight I am looking out of the window towards the lights of the high-rise buildings of the city, and wonder about the lives of the people who inhabit those spaces. Are they happy? Who are they living with? What color are their drapes? What did they have for dinner? Do they like their eggs scrambled or over easy? Do they watch old movies? Do they like the Electric Light Orchestra? How often do the laugh? Do they get headaches? What really goes on inside those spaces that I can only behold from afar, other lives that go through their days not knowing that I wonder about them from time to time?

I, on the other hand, am in a different place. Though I sometimes wonder about other lives in other places, as a writer is wont to do, in the quest to gather details that make up a believable story, the demarcations between them and I are clear. I am not them. And not only do I live elsewhere, the structure of my life now is also different, and the air around me has been transformed.

I live along a large, black river that functions as my moat, and even my door is the same color as the lamb’s blood that was daubed on the doorposts of the children of Israel so they will not be stricken with the plague. I am safe here within these tall, heavy walls, and my doors are guarded by a sentinel upon whom is vested the powers of love.


Because of love, this sentinel’s competence and constitution extends to the walls, becoming the structure itself, throbbing with life, reverberating with music, and ablaze with the light of a thousand mornings. Nevermore shall I be the damsel in distress; nevermore shall I want to be anywhere among the ruins of a world that goes to battle on a whim and a conjecture. I am here. This is now. Out of the ruins, the fortress has risen.

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