The lights, two of them at first, multiplied quickly. Upwards into the sky, creating from nothing, a concrete and steel tower of Babel in the last quarter of the twentieth century.
Kramer stood in front of it, his neck and back arched as he vainly tried to see the top. Now he was in a canyon of tower blocks. Skycrapers lined the wide and tree-lined boulevard that had materialised from the desert floor. A towering inferno.
Kramer felt small, lost. He was drawn towards the great ornate marble door of the largest and entered. The interior was no less ornate. Marble dominated here too, cut art-deco style, a foyer designed in an earlier age.
A digital clock, out of place and obvious, flashed five-twenty-seven in the AM and, by the side of the lift doors that were in the centre of the foyer, was a sign which read "Those with vertigo please take the stairs."
Kramer moved towards the lift, but it was not the usual type. Instead it was a moving vertical belt with small platforms allowing just one person to stand at a time, stepping off when reaching their destination. Kramer stepped on, no stopping this boy, and moved upwards.
The first floor was much the same as the ground. Corridors branched off the main central hallway. More marble. Michelangelo's dream palace. Now another floor, bare and desolate, unfinished, more like a multi-storey car park than an office block. And another, household goods and ladies underwear. Keep going Kramer told himself. He did. Every floor he passed had the same style clock ticking off the floor and the hours, sometimes in the wrong order. Was it floor 5.28 am or was the time 27? 28? 29? The big three and the big oh?
Now sensing the top. 132, 133, 134, 5.29am, 135. Stop and alight, quickly whilst the machine is still moving.
Kramer was on the roof and held on tight. The whole structure moved slightly in the wind, only inches, but it was enough to make him unsteady. He grabbed a rail for support and looked up. He was not at the very top after all. A spiral staircase, free standing in the centre led up to what looked a penthouse on the top of the world.
Hey you, get off my cloud.
Kramer started for it but never made it. Never got to the top. Never made that final mile, or that last step.
Down again, only this time the stairwell. Now a regular lift. Stairs again.
Down, down, into the open, into the city. Night in the city looks pretty to me. Neon and flourescent. Strip lighting on the main strip. Sunset strip. Empire State. A homage to the vertical and a Benediction to Edison, the Sears Tower and the World Trade Centre.
Buildings that go where Babel couldn't, or didn't, or wouldn't. Dominus Vobiscum.
Kramer walked down the canyon towards the dawn, towards the sun rising in the west, towards the edge of the world where a huge waterfall spilled over, emptying the oceans.
Kramer stood and watched. The city behind him long gone. And now the land going too. Disappearing until he was left tip-toeing on the final small piece. The Devil or the deep blue sea? Kramer had no choice as his tiny foothold on land and reality, on reason and on rhyme evaporated, and he fell, headlong, becoming part of the cataract.
Tomorrow belonged to him.
