Sky and Castle

A heavily edited and possibly improved version of an older story. Advice appreciated.

A blue sky, streaked with broad swaths of aquamarine, as if a painter's watery brush had strayed, blending the spheres of sea and air. A pale gray dot floats within this cloudless sky, an improbable apparition. The dot is solidly defined, but distant, it hangs upon the skyline like an unasked question.

Features leap into distinction as I move closer, and my eyes dance over parapets, crenelations, sharp towers, and a central keep. I remember my life, remember my father, remember

“Parapets?” My feet swung beneath my grandfather's old tall chair; fingers pryed and searched the chair's painted back. The test was tomorrow, Monday; my young hands spelt their anxiety on the ancient chair.

“P-A-R-A-P-E-T-S” He speaks slowly, distinctly, the same way we speak on the phone, now.

“Uh...” I stall, of course. I can tell he knows I'm stuck, now, but I didn't realize it all those years ago. “It's like, something in a castle...” That's what we were studying - what I was studying.

He doesn't smile, but his eyes are suddenly larger, and I feel small, like I'm about to watch an actor preform. His arms bow, index finger extend, and he's suddenly a monkey, hands raised, pointing at his underarms. He's started to laugh now, and I laugh too, watching him hop around the ground.

Of course, that was a long time ago, and now I can identify the castle's features as it moves closer.

Bird droppings speckle the castle's numberless roofs. The dark shingled roofs seem somehow older, greyer and more weathered than the stone which supports them. The stone itself is painted with moss, thickest on the ground, thinner as the towers and walls rise. I find weak spots in the north tower roof, spots along the wall where water has leaked through the roof and given rise to independent colonies of moss.

I don't need to see the roof from inside the tower to identify the problem. It's common in buildings from that time period, a major problem for the societies which restore old English estates and castles. My father and I discussed the flaw when I was still studying architecture, when we had something in common besides a love for bad jokes and worse food, and we never agreed. It was a disagreement we cherished, one which led to boisterous laughter and complaints about new techniques and textbooks.

He built mainly residential then, and the work had become a part of the household, since he started working out of an unused upstairs room. He liked skylights, clever corners, french doors, and open winding staircases. Now, I look for these features as I pass through houses, and can only completely approve when each is present.

The castle must have been built in a different time. The castle sits on a ball of mud and rock, like a strange and inturned growth, slumbering as it hangs in the sky.

My feet touch the ground with that weightless one small step quality I never feel in life. It is hard to tell the difference between earth and stone. The ground has been broken into itself by hundreds of feet, hundreds of years, and nothing soft remains.

There is only a few feet of cold naked ground between the edge and castle. One step, an outstretched arm, and I stand rooted between earth and stone walls. My fingers pry the wide cracks between immense blocks, and I reach higher, look higher, and see

The blue above me, gray castle walls my horizon, and the distant ocean reflects a quiet sun. I should feel vertigo at this point, and I concentrate, probing with perverse curiosity for that slow and deliberate full pendulum swing as a weight travels around my stomach and my ears rebel while eyes water and tears betray my body's struggle with the impossible sight. This is a dream. I feel nothing.