Drabble: Purpose

Written from a prompt: Frame the absence of something

When does a building know its purpose?

Does it know from the moment its foundation is built? Does it see its blueprints, or is it one with the minds of those who invented its concept? 

Perhaps, a building waits until its completion. Then, does it only know its purpose the moment its last brick has been fixed into place; when its roof is fit to shield its precious interiors? Or, is it not until those strange little people make use of the space that it holds, does the building only discover that purpose?

There was a tower that dominated a small island, located nowhere in the vast ocean. If it could think, it would have been asking these questions for as long as it could remember. See, while its top marked halfway between the ground and the clouds, it had been left  behind – left unfinished by those who created it.

For countless days, the tower’s thick walls resisted the burns brought on by the mighty sun. On others, it fought hard against the wind, but as for the leaf litter that accumulated inside its lower levels, having intruded from through its paneless windows, the tower saw no way of sweeping them away. When the temperatures dropped to near zero, its foundations became numbed from the weight of the rest of its heavy body, and all it could ever feel was its own insatiable longing. Then, during the rains of Spring, it passively allowed the cold pours to run down its spiraling stairs, feeling damp and soiled in every empty room within, because it had no roof. 

The tower on this island could never feel lonely, not only because it was an unfinished tower and nothing more, but also because it was unable to recount the last time it felt the presence of humankind. Not a trace of them was left behind with it. None of their tools, their ships, their plans… Even so, the tower would think about humans often. It was only natural for a tower in such a position to believe that somehow, it needed them. All it ever craved was to be complete.

* * *

After days upon days of floating adrift at sea, there arrived a young man on an improvised raft who had found himself washed up on yet another deserted island. The immense joy he once held was already long removed from his face, but it was only now, the denial that he had stumbled again upon a dead end finally disappeared. 

On this puny island was only one tower, and the once optimistic man would discover that the tall structure was the only difference between where he was now and where he was last.

The man cursed the tower, expressing his bitterness about how it betrayed him because he believed that the moment he saw its body rise from the horizon, his hope of seeing civilisation again had been fulfilled. He expressed his intense resentment and rage for some minutes more, until total exhaustion. Finally, he flopped himself onto the overgrowth. He reached into his apron pocket and drew out a cleaver knife and began, strangely, venting to it. The cleaver, even with its crudely scratched on drawing of a face, never responded back to the man, but somehow, the man’s voice grew calmer and more cheerful the more he spoke.

This enigmatic man was the first impression of humankind that the tower had experienced in years.

To be continued...?