It was the tallest tower of our time, with over a thousand floors and millions of inhabitants. It rose majestically into the sky, dominating all other buildings in the world, though it was impossible not to notice that it leaned to one side at an alarming angle. This is the story of how it came to fall, so for simplicity’s sake let’s call it Babel.
Granted, that wasn’t the real name of the tower, but it’s close enough. As you must know, the original Babel was only a myth, while the tower I’m talking about actually existed. The ruins can still be visited and form a mountain range that some believe is haunted. I wouldn’t know about ghosts, I avoid the place myself. Its true name would mean nothing to you, as the language of the people who lived there has been all but forgotten. That’s how fast things change. I’m an old man now, but I remember when it was the most popular language in existence.
For hundreds of years, Babel stood as the epitome of civilized life, embodying the promise that by reaching for the heavens, one could forever improve the quality of life for all. Each new floor was expected to be better, more beautiful, more advanced, and this compelling idea drove people to keep building. The increasingly rarefied air only seemed to intensify their urge to grow.
To the people who lived there, the notion that humans once dwelled in pitifully small structures on the ground, exposed to the elements, was ridiculed as a blatant lie, or simply ignored. Everyone knew that towers were the only feasible way to live, just as it was self-evident that living in the largest tower of all must be preferable to living anywhere else. I’ve learned enough in my travels to know that it wasn’t always so, that our ancestors lived tethered to the earth, but as a man of my time, it’s hard even for me to imagine how that could have worked.
In my youth, I often traveled the distance between the then humble tower where I live, hundreds of miles away, and Babel, traversing the barren wasteland that lay between them. The journey took even longer than it should have because of the detour I had to take to avoid approaching it from the north. Only a fool would venture through the lakes of rubbish that had accumulated on that side of the tower over the centuries. And every time I saw Babel looming in the distance, it was higher than the year before.
It is said that the land around Babel was once covered by a vast forest of ancient trees, but these were cut down to provide lumber for the never-ending construction, making way for deep quarries where minerals and stone were mined. And because the people of Babel were forced to search far and wide for the materials they needed to build new levels, they often came into conflict with other towers. They usually emerged victorious from these battles, and many smaller towers were set on fire. My own enclave was lucky enough to be spared this fate, if only because we were on the opposite side of the wastelands, otherwise I probably wouldn’t be here to tell the tale. In any case, as long as you were not in their crosshairs, the people of Babel could be quite friendly, and I kept good company there.
You might think that the tilting of the top of the tower was my first clue that something was wrong with Babel. In retrospect, I suppose it should have been, but at the time I never doubted that they would take steps to correct it. After all, if anyone could do it, it was them, even though it was considered impolite to raise the issue with the locals. I realize now that their only response to the problem was to keep building new floors at full speed, but I didn’t know it at the time. No, the first worrying sign came when I arrived at the tower for another visit and saw a whole bunch of people paragliding from it. The wind conditions around the tower were wildly unpredictable, even more so at high altitudes, and as I watched in horror, nearly a third of them fell to their deaths after colliding with the walls.
Not only was this practice unheard of in my experience, as paragliding was only practiced in the deep chutes inside the tower where it was safe, I could not begin to imagine why anyone would want to risk their life in this way. It was certainly not necessary for descending the tower. Babel had gigantic elevators that could take you from the ground to the top in half a day if you could afford them, and of course there were always the stairs or the ramp. Anyone rich enough to buy a paraglider could pay for an elevator ride, so their reason for jumping off the tower was beyond me.
Burning with curiosity, I saw one of the survivors touch the ground a short distance from my caravan, so I rushed to meet him. I was struck by how joyful the man was, and as I helped him fold his equipment, I asked him, “Tell me, friend, why do people jump off the tower like that? Is it not dangerous?”
“Sure it’s dangerous,” he replied, ignoring my thick accent, “didn’t you see those poor saps die? That’s the whole point. It’s a rush, there’s nothing like it. But you have to be sharp. Those guys weren’t, they shouldn’t have tried it.”
To hide my astonishment at this display of callous disregard for other people’s lives, I asked the first thing that came to mind, “Did you jump from the top?”
This time he actually laughed, as if I had said something terribly funny, “From the top? Do I look like a mogul? No, but I jumped pretty high. And if my new business pays off, in another year I’ll be able to jump from the 700th floor. Now that would be something.”
I didn’t press him further about his motivation for jumping, although my curiosity remained undiminished, for fear of upsetting him. After hearing that he was also a businessman, I was eager to impress him with my wares, so I offered to escort him to the entrance of the tower. But as we talked about this and that, I couldn’t help but wonder why this affluent man, who now seemed perfectly normal and well adjusted, would be so unhappy with life that he would seek death in such a reckless activity. I forced myself to stop thinking about it and dismissed it as a temporary craze of the weak-minded.
On my next trip to Babel, the paragliding crowd was still there, but now there were even more worrying signs of trouble. Upon entering the tower, it was impossible not to notice the lack of maintenance on the ground floor, along with a large number of strange-looking green and yellow banners hanging everywhere. There were now visible cracks in the walls, and dirt was accumulating in the sagging pavement. For a tower with a thousand floors and a base of more than a hundred square miles that had to support incalculable weight, this was very disconcerting.
Suspecting that it would be unwise to ask the locals directly, I sought out other foreign merchants to discuss the matter. They were all as dismayed by this development as I was. Some mentioned that the government had cut the budget for building maintenance by nearly half, and this was not for lack of money. On the contrary, the number of moguls living in the top floors had never been higher, and the pressure to build more stories for them was at its peak.
Those who had been in the tower the longest spoke of a growing political divide among the people of Babel, from the poor at the bottom to the wealthiest at the top. It seemed that one group, the Greens, claimed that safety building standards were holding them back, and that corruption was seeping into all the rewards of tower expansion. They argued for a return to the old days when people were free to build as they pleased without so many restrictions. The opposing faction, the Yellows, contended that it was foolish to change anything too drastically, and that new technology and more oversight would eventually fix whatever was wrong. Neither group specifically addressed the issue of the tower’s tilt, but it was assumed that their policies would take care of everything.
“But this is madness!” I said to Kai, a spice merchant from the south who had settled in Babel. “Can’t they see that in a tower this big, lack of maintenance is a sure invitation to disaster?”
“I can see it,” my friend replied with great patience, “and you can see it, for it is clear as water, but they cannot. Just don’t fool yourself into thinking that the problem is only what these Greens are saying, as crazy as they sound. The other side, the Yellows, may seem to disagree, but in practice I don’t see them making any serious effort at maintenance either. In fact, the current Babel government is run by a Yellow, and the cracks are there for everyone to see. All they care about is building new levels.”
“If only they bought spices with the same passion …” I lamented. “But what do you think is causing this? Aren’t they worried about the tower falling?”
“They don’t accept that this is a problem, and if you ask them directly, they’ll answer without batting an eye that Babel will go on forever. As for the source of this madness, I have a theory, but I would suggest that you talk to some of them first, both the Greens and the Yellows. Be diplomatic, and when you have made up your mind, we can meet again.”
Following Kai’s advice, I waited for the right opportunity to make my inquiries, and it soon presented itself. A woman dressed all in green came into my makeshift shop and asked for a rare, very expensive spice. As luck would have it, I had a small quantity to sell, and she paid without haggling. After the deal was done, and while offering her tea, I asked her in a tone that said I was just making small talk and didn’t care one way or the other, “So, my friend, what is your position on this building code issue I keep hearing about?”
“Oh, don’t even get me started,” she said in a high-pitched voice. “It makes me so angry how people can’t see what’s right in front of them. It’s killing us, just killing us, but those stupid Yellow officials just won’t listen. Corrupt, the lot of them.”
“You don’t say,” I muttered, still pretending to be only politely interested. “Forgive me, I’m a foreigner, I have trouble following these affairs. But tell me, what are these officials doing wrong?”
“Well, everything!” she exclaimed. “I’m sick of the way things are right now. I swear to God, it makes me physically ill to think about what we are becoming. And nobody really cares, it’s so depressing. There’s the corruption, of course, the rising costs, and … and the lack of good morals, for another. I’m sick of it all.”
I decided to risk a more direct approach, “What about the tilting of the tower? Does that concern you?” She reacted immediately, getting defensive, “Tilting? There is no tilting. Listen, what we need is someone to straighten things out, that’s all. Somebody who is not a crook, who has the courage to change what needs to be changed, by any means necessary. So that we can be like we were before. That’s all I ask.”
I steered the conversation to less heated topics, and after she finished her tea, she excused herself. As she was leaving, she almost bumped into another woman who came in wearing a very large yellow scarf. The two of them stood and glowered at each other for a few seconds before continuing on their way.
I approached my new customer with a smile and she said accusingly, “I see you sell to those green nuts too.” I continued to smile as I replied, adding to my alien accent, “I just arrive your beautiful tower, madam, I not really know anyone. But my products excellent, believe me.” That disarmed her a bit and she placed her order.
After she paid, I offered her a cup of chamomile tea, as was my custom, but thought it best not to press her on the subject of the tower, as she was still visibly upset. She brought it up herself, though, saying, “Since you are new here, I think I should warn you about these greens. They are the symbol of everything that is wrong with Babel right now. I get sick just thinking about them. Instead of trying to make things better, they just want to bully everyone. They are so ignorant, so cut off from reality, it is disgusting. I shudder to imagine what will happen to us if they are not stopped.”
Throwing caution to the wind, but emboldened by the fact that she had already paid, I dared to say, “May I ask you about the tilt of the tower? Is that a problem?”
I thought she would get angry again, but instead she seemed terrified by my question, “Tilt? God! Who said anything about a tilt? I’ve never heard of such a … Look, we need to improve our regulations to make sure people behave properly. It’s just straight common sense. And besides, everyone knows that new technology is on its way that will fix things. Not that there is anything wrong with the tower! Except for the Greens, of course. They are the ones who want to destroy it.”
“Destroy the tower, you mean?” I asked, wondering if I had understood her correctly. She got up to leave and grumbled, “Oh, now I have a headache.” She hurried away without another word.
The next time I saw my friend Kai, a few days later, we went to dinner on the 200th floor. After we ordered, he looked at me with interest and asked, “So, did you get a chance to do your research?”
“I did,” I replied, “but it was harder than I thought. It’s amazing how divided they are.”
“Indeed. And have you come to any conclusions?”
“Well,” I said uncertainly, still trying to make sense of it all, “they are very unhappy, but with what, I cannot say. I know those in my tower who would give their right arm to live in Babel, but the people here are miserable. And I don’t think the things they complain about are really the cause. It’s all very vague to me, like they don’t really know what’s bothering them so much. I wonder if the real problem has something to do with jumping off the tower to die while claiming to be having fun.”
“Or with taking some of the mixtures I dispense with careless abandon, yes,” he added. “In small doses, they are excellent medicine for pain and discomfort, so of course I sell them. But in excess, they can be toxic, you know that. I always warn those who buy too much, but I don’t think they listen. They seem hell-bent on poisoning themselves until I’m forced to ban them from my store. And for what?”
“Yes, what! Come on Kai, I can see that you already have an idea. Tell me, don’t keep me in suspense.”
“Oh, all right. It’s just that I think you’re going to find it absurd. And it is absurd, but so is life sometimes.” After a pause for the sake of dramatic effect, he continued, “As I see it, what makes them sick and disgruntled, at least those who were born here, is that they don’t see the point of building higher anymore. Try as they might, they couldn’t reach heaven, so now they feel cheated. In their hearts, they’re tired of raising the tower forever, but they can’t admit it because they’ve been doing it for centuries, so they have to make up excuses. And when even that isn’t enough, they resort to rash behavior, hoping for some kind of release. They can’t go on like this, but they can’t stop it either.” He finished his drink and waited for my reaction.
“What? No,” I said, struggling to grasp the implications. “You’ve got it all wrong. They want to build higher and higher, that’s the one thing both groups seem to agree on. In fact, I have heard that they are building levels twice as fast now as they were twenty years ago. Give them another twenty years and I bet they double it again.”
“Yes, I’m sure you’re right about that,” he said with a patience that I found patronizing, “if they have the time. But often what people say and what they feel deep down are not the same, you know. And when the gap between what you’re allowed to say and what you’re really feeling but can’t express gets too big, it can lead you to keep doing exactly what you hate in order to silence that pesky voice inside.”
I told him right away, “I’m sorry, Kai, but I think you’re dead wrong about this. If anything, they are unhappy because they wish they could build even faster. The sky is not the limit for them.”
“All right, suit yourself,” he said with a shrug. “But if you come up with a better theory, let me know. For what it’s worth, I hope you’re right.”
I didn’t see Kai again for the rest of my stay in Babel, and after a month I left for my own tower with a depleted supply and a full purse. Unfortunately, my next visit had to be postponed several times, much to my chagrin, because spices were so scarce on the market. Another two years passed before I was able to return, and when I finally did, it was obvious even from a distance that things had gone from bad to worse.
Babel was taller than ever, but the tilting of its upper levels was also more pronounced, and the very top, which could only be seen with the aid of a telescope, appeared to be damaged. As I approached with my caravan, I came across a huge crater not far from the tower, created by something that had destroyed everything within a half mile radius. At the bottom of the crater was a mound of debris that appeared to be a large portion of the tower itself. The logical conclusion was that the uppermost level had simply collapsed, but this idea was so incredible that I grappled with it for a long time before I could accept it.
At the south entrance of Babel, the atmosphere was so different that I wondered if I had come to the wrong gate. The cracks in the walls had turned into outright crevices, and in several places the floor had caved in, leaving holes large enough for a person to fall into. What’s more, where once there had been a contagious excitement in the air from the incessant hustle and bustle, there was now suspicion in everyone’s eyes. They marched in silence under the watch of armed soldiers.
For the first time in all my visits, I was taken into custody when I tried to enter the tower. They held me for hours without explanation until they allowed me to prove that I was a trader. I knew some of the officers who questioned me, and I’m sure they remembered me, but they acted as if I were a complete stranger. My hinted offers of a modest kickback went unheeded.
When I was finally released, a menacing guard told me that I needed a special pass to move from floor to floor, which, of course, I didn’t have. Until I got one, he said, I would not be allowed to leave the 102nd floor, where most of the spice merchants conducted their business. But that news didn’t shock me as much as finding out I’d have to use the ramp because none of the elevators were working.
Several hours later, when I finally reached the 102nd floor with all my goods, I went straight to Kai’s warehouse. If anyone could tell me what was happening, it was him. I found him in the process of closing up his shop for good, packing everything into crates. He motioned for me to wait while he finished instructing his helpers, then came over and gave me a warm hug. He said, “My friend, it’s a pleasure to see you again. But I’m afraid you’ve come to Babel at the worst possible time.”
“I know! Kai, what is going on?” I said as I accepted the refreshment he offered. “The tower is a mess, and I think part of it actually fell. Can this be true? Please tell me I’m wrong. And all those guards!”
“Sadly, you are not wrong. That was just a few months ago. And let me tell you, when that floor dropped, taking all the workers with it, it was like one of those bombs from the past you learn about in school, it shook the entire building. I thought the whole of Babel was coming down. They say tens of thousands of people died, although the exact number has never been made public.”
“But why? Why?”
“The government says it’s sabotage,” he replied with a tired expression, “so now we have soldiers all over the place. But you would have to be very naive to believe that. The simplest explanation is that the rift between the Greens and Yellows continues to grow, with each side trying to outdo the other in cutting back on building maintenance. That’s when they’re not beating the war drums. Last year alone, they burned another tower in the east. You’d think the recent disaster would teach them the importance of coming to their senses, but no, they just elected perhaps the biggest lunatic of them all.”
“Is that a Green or a Yellow?”
“Does it matter? The more they fight, the less you can tell one from the other. And I kid you not, his bid for power was to propose taking materials from the tower itself, especially from the lower levels, to continue adding new floors. He claims it is both more effective and cheaper than searching farther and farther away for the resources they need. So now they’re taking stones from the base of the tower. And listen to this, another of his promises is to make bricks out of sunshine and air, or as he explains, the way plants grow things. I mean, this is pure insanity, the man belongs in a mental institution. But half the tower agrees with him, even those above the 900th floor. Or should I say especially those at the top. The moguls over there are so out of touch with reality that they deny the cracks even exist. I guess if you lived on the top levels all your life and never came down, you really never read the signs.”
“But they must know that this cannot go on forever,” I protested, my disbelief turning to despair, “they must see that the tower will fall.”
“Ah, friend,” he said, more weary than ever, “don’t you get it yet? Have you forgotten our last talk? They want the tower to fall. Most of them do, anyway. That’s why they cling to this new leader, there’s a gleam in his eye that promises chaos and destruction. And although they will never admit it, I think they see it as a kind of deliverance. After centuries of frantic building and no heaven in sight, it’s finally the time. Well, they can do what they want, I’ve had enough. I’m leaving Babel for good.” He surveyed the crate filled room with sadness and shook his head, “I’ll miss it though. It’s been, oh, about twenty years now. No, a quarter of a century, by God. How time has flown! I’ve become an old man and I didn’t even notice it. But I’m just not ready to be buried under the rubble.”
I still couldn’t accept the wisdom of his words, so I chose to remain silent. Sure, the situation was dire, but survival is a basic human instinct, it is in our nature. In the face of impending disaster, people will eventually pull back, and there was still plenty of time to do so. They may wait until the last possible moment, but they are bound to do something, or so I thought.
Sensing my hesitation, Kai continued, “I urge you to do the same, my friend. Sell all your goods as quickly as possible, at a discount if you must, and leave. Don’t hang around here, it’s getting dangerous.”
On this last point at least, we could both agree, for it was clear to me that even if Babel managed to save itself, things would probably get worse before they got any better. The current situation could go on for a long time, and I knew only too well that in periods of unrest, foreigners like me were often blamed for everything. So I assured him that I would cut my stay short and that I would visit him next year in the tower where he was born in the west, since that’s where he planned to settle down.
In the end, I didn’t have to lower my prices at all. On the contrary, I made quite a profit in record time because the people of Babel, or should I say those on the higher floors, were anxious to buy everything I had. You see, there was a new fad above the 700th floor for the most lavish banquets, with neighbors competing to see who could throw the biggest party. And believe me, they were partying all the time up there. It was quite a contrast between the gloomy atmosphere below and the never-ending revelry above. And while such a stark disparity didn’t inspire much confidence in the tower’s long-term stability, how could I complain? I had made a killing selling spices, and with not a grain of pepper left in stock, I was ready to go.
On my last day in Babel, after a two-week delay, I finally received the authorization I needed to move between floors. I decided to use it to say goodbye to the tower properly, so I bought a lift ticket to the highest level I was allowed to go, well over the 1000th floor. I had never been that high before, not only because the fare was so expensive, but also because those floors were mostly luxury residences with very little wholesale business going on there. Since I didn’t know when I would be able to come back, I thought it was worth the effort.
Well, it turns out I was sorely mistaken. The residences were glamorous and brand-new, but after a while they all looked the same, and there was only one public lookout where you could enjoy the view through a pane of shatterproof glass. I guess they didn’t build more of them to discourage people from other floors from visiting. Only there was nothing to enjoy except the sight of clouds. That was all there was to it, a vast sea of fluffy, immaterial, vacuous clouds stretching as far as the eye could see.
I couldn’t be more disappointed. I had paid all that money, I had climbed all that way, after waiting so many years for the right opportunity, and my only reward was an ocean of moisture. Suddenly I wished I had done something else on my last day in Babel, a fancy dinner in an expensive restaurant, the latest music show, maybe a visit to the zoo. Anything would have been better than that dreary and meaningless view from above.
Frustrated to the brink of tears, I took the elevator down, cursing that it would take hours to get to the ground floor. As I waited apart from the other passengers, reluctant to engage them in conversation, a new and urgent desire came over me. As if my life depended on it, I wanted to be in a forest, to rest in the shade of a tree with a wide crown. I asked myself, when was the last time I did something like that? Come to think of it, had I ever done this before? I couldn’t say, but I promised myself that I would do it now, on my way home, even if I had to deviate from my route. Under the glare of the elevator lights, nothing seemed more desirable than that.
I’m happy to say that after I left Babel, I was able to fulfill that wish. I found not a real forest but a grove, it was the only wood for miles, and I lay down under a tree. It felt good, yes, if a little uncomfortable because of the heat and the insects, you don’t see many of them in the towers except cockroaches. But I didn’t stay long. My mind was filled with all the things I had to do in the next few months, and all the plans I had to change if I was going to stay away from Babel for a while and still keep myself in business. So, in no time at all, I was drawn back into all the activities that make up life in a tower, even one as low as mine, then only 250 stories.
I avoided Babel for five years, but Babel didn’t wait for me. Just when I thought I’d been away long enough, when the longing to see it in all its glory became more than I could bear, it fell. No one had to tell me, no one in a hundred different towers scattered across the continent had to be warned of what had just happened. We all heard it, we felt the ground shake beneath our feet, the sun was blotted out of the sky. People stood stunned for days, unable to move, unwilling to speak, while others wept like mad. That’s how we knew Babel was no more.
Amazingly, there were some survivors, though none from above the 100th floor. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to flee such a catastrophe, but over the next few weeks they began to find their way to my tower in search of shelter. From their scattered accounts, I was able to piece together the story of Babel’s final days.
I learned that the police of Babel had been ordered to arrest anyone who suggested that the tower was leaning or that the walls at the base were crumbling. Such orders were rarely carried out, however, as those who dared speak the truth in public were more likely to be lynched by a mob, even as the structural foundations continued to be plundered for materials. Moreover, the gulf between the Greens and the Yellows had grown so wide that a Green could be killed if he lost his way and landed on a mostly Yellow floor, and vice versa.
Despite these ominous signs of impending disaster, the parties and banquets went on until the end, and the survivors all agree that on the very day the tower finally came down, there was a great celebration to dedicate the last completed floor, which was said to be the most magnificent yet. The cream of society was there en masse to attend the event, along with high-ranking officials. Then, without warning, the floors began to cave in with a deafening roar, but the tower was so massive that it took several hours for the entire building to collapse. What wasn’t destroyed in the fall was consumed in the ensuing fire, the likes of which the world had probably never seen before.
The leaders in my tower proclaimed, even as the ash and dust continued to rain down upon us, that we had nothing to fear. They insisted that Babel had fallen because mistakes had been made there that would never be repeated. From where they sat on the top floors, they assured us that it was perfectly safe to build new levels, as long as it was done responsibly, and encouraged everyone to continue contributing to the growth of our tower. They still say those things today, decades after the fact, but they are fools. They didn’t know Babel as well as I did, or if they did, they chose to forget.
I see now that Kai was right all along. Poor Kai, he died only six months after the fall of Babel, supposedly of cancer, but I’m sure what really killed him was a broken heart. No matter what he said, he loved that tower too much to go on without it. Only the problem has become far worse than he ever imagined. The collective madness he recognized was not confined to Babel, and it is now spreading everywhere.
Of course, to call it madness is actually misleading. It’s more like an exhaustion that takes over the soul and leaves you hollow inside. It makes people unable to think of any way out of the rut except to welcome destruction, even as they throw everything they’ve got into building higher levels. Meanwhile, the signs are there for all to see, including on my tower. Like the Babel I knew, there is the reckless, almost suicidal behavior disguised as hedonism, the inability to face or rationally discuss what is right in front of you, the ever more desperate pursuit of the very things that make you sick and unhappy, and the need for scapegoats.
Most people don’t remember it now, but in the early years after the fall of Babel, my tower struggled with the loss of such an important trading partner. During this time, construction virtually ceased while new trade connections were forged. But then things began to pick up again, because the disappearance of Babel meant less competition for the coveted building materials we needed. The rate of upward expansion has never slowed since then, a fact celebrated by almost everyone, to the extent that my tower is today more than twice the size it was when Babel fell. It is now a great and famous tower in its own right.
The fact that the top of my tower is starting to lean sideways doesn’t seem to bother my fellow citizens at all, or so they tell me. In fact, when I ask my clients back home, they claim that we are still aiming for heaven, that paradise is really over there for us to reach if we can climb high enough. There should be no limit to growth, they all say, but their tone is noncommittal, merely parroting an accepted truism. Perhaps they have already intuited that a vaporous sea will be the only reward for two centuries of toil. In any case, no one really believes the mantra anymore, and yet, with no other creed to replace it, we continue to build. At this rate, it’s entirely possible that one day we’ll surpass Babel, but I’m afraid the longing to see it all come crashing down is already ingrained in us.
Powerless to change what is to come, in my nightmares I await the day when it will be a crime to suggest that the tower is tilting, when they will throw stones at you just for mentioning it. Pray that day never comes, friend, but if it does, remember my words and make haste, for it heralds the eve of destruction.
— David August lives in São Paulo, Brazil, and works in human rights advocacy. His stories have appeared in Fiction on the Web and Idle Ink, and are forthcoming in LatineLit.