The tower rose up by itself.

One day we walked a wide-open plain, one lacking landmark or the slightest distinguishing feature, and the next day, as we walked the very same plain-voila! There was the tower. And oh, how we marvelled at its height. It towered way up into the sky until it was swallowed by a white puffy cloud. But when a gust of wind blew the cloud away, we saw that the tower climbed well past that point, crashing into the stratosphere, and perhaps pushing into the farthest reaches of outer space.

We marvelled only for a moment though. We got a weird vibe.

We were a small band of old men, numbering only a few hundred, who'd once sat in secret seats of authority, scattered here and there upon the earth, dictating through the 'proper' channels what should or shouldn't be, to the billions who'd taken us seriously. And we'd grown very rich and powerful over the years from all our pronouncements and announcements, while always being careful to hide the methods of our morality cartel behind the letter of the law. Ah, we thought we'd tend our herds forever, but a few weeks before the tower appeared, sometime during the night, everyone else in the world-the masses that bore our branding-managed to escape. Vanished. Imagine our horror at loosing all our sheep! And these bleaters weren't the only possessions missing from our barns. Every building, house, road, tree, animal, car-even the flowers of the fields-they'd all vanished too. Simply put, everything in the world worth organizing or taxing was missing.

We'd been robbed.

That was the day our band of old men became shepherds without flocks, kings without serfs, idea men with no test subjects. We were rendered useless, with nothing left for us to do, except wander this abysmal plain, day after day, desperate for something new to position ourselves over, desperate to sate our hunger for making up rules and guidelines-to find meaning in our lives.
But all we got was this lousy tower.

After our initial shock wore off, we began to circle its base, scanning the cylindrical walls in hopes of finding a secret doorway, hoping that our new tower contained plunder. Wishful thinking? True. Nevertheless, we were soon salivating at the prospect of discovering a new herd of sheep inside, whose ears we could freely twist, whose bodies we could strike with staves, and whom we could push from place to place. Like shepherds do.
But, alas-there was no door. The tower surface was just one continuous curve made of some smooth mystery substance, opaque, hard as marble, and too tough to be penetrated with the beating of our sticks or the pounding of our foreheads. Not that we didn't try.

Then we lifted our heads and scanned the tower all around, searching for even the suggestion of a window, a door, a crack in the wall, any kind of opening at all. But we could find no prospect for penetration on any level.
One of our band suddenly opined that the Earth must have decided to grow herself a giant, rock hard, taut umbilical cord, one that rose up into eternity in order to reattach to some estranged, and probably weepy, universal mother.

"Maybe, maybe," everyone grumbled.

"Well, whatever the tower is," I screamed, “it seems unlikely to contain any new sheep!"
"Goddamn! Goddamn!” everyone shouted.

It was then, out of frustration, that we all started trying to lead each other around. But shepherds seldom take kindly to that sort of attention, so we were at each other's throats in seconds, and in the worst way. We used our staves to beat the right shit out of each other. Many ears got ripped, teeth were chipped, noses bit, and not a few beards got yanked.

I suppose our collective furore was fuelled by our inability, as individuals, to find peace in our hearts. For without any new 'inferior' tribe of pigmies on the horizon for us to design pens and traps around, it was unlikely our little band would ever achieve real inner peace again. And as we continued to club one another, that fact began to sink in for all of us-things were never going to get any better. Ever.
Growing more enraged, we threw down our staves, rolled up our sleeves, and began to go at each other up close and personal-with fists and teeth this time. Splintering fingers. Bending tailbones. Biting off arseholes. Yanking out hair with our tongues. Oh yes, we really gave each other 'the business' on the afternoon the tower came.
And we had just gotten started when we were interrupted.

At dusk, one old man looked up, and, noticing a peculiarity, began to point and yell to draw attention. And we all looked up and saw that as the sun was disappearing over the horizon, its rays glinted off the tower just so, and its surface seemed to change before our eyes. Instead of opaque marble, the tower took on a transparent quality, giving the appearance of clear plastic.

Distracted from tearing off arseholes and scooping out eyeballs, we picked up our staves and began to beat upon the tower again. And we didn't know why. That was our simple solution to any problem we couldn't argue our way out of-we'd beat our way through.

But try as we might, we couldn't pierce the structures hard skin.

Oddly, though, this newest round of beatings had created echoes, revealing the tower to be hollow. And that was very puzzling. For when we'd banged on it earlier in the day, it hadn't sounded hollow then. And because this was a most unsettling anomaly, we began to heatedly debate what it all meant. Yes, beards got yanked.

When the stars came out, we stopped fighting long enough to gasp at how incredibly bright they were-so bright, in fact, it seemed that a new morning had dawned. And because the stars were so beautiful, naturally, they were also quite desirable. So we began to claim them for ourselves, even naming them after ourselves, which, of course, led to a new round of arguments, stave beatings, and arsehole chomping.

But just as relations were starting to get really ugly, we all fell down at once. The earth beneath our feet had begun to violently rumble and shake, like an earthquake-but much worse. And as our old bones bounced, we could feel the earth rippling beneath our backs like it had transformed into a stormy sea of jelly.
And then one of our band pointed up at the tower, which had begun to hum like a giant harp, and he said:
"Look! Everything's getting sucked up into the sky!"

And it was true. Earth, grass, rock, molten lava, and anything else you can imagine being underfoot-it was all being sucked up the tower at an incredible velocity. And we old shepherds, the last clinging inhabitants of the world, we found ourselves being turned over and tossed about in the undulating earth as it rushed towards the tower like water to an open drain.

Until we got sucked up too.

The tower was actually a giant straw. And, of course, it was God on the other end. But upon our being consumed, we realized that we were the ones who had really sucked.

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