When the mist clears, I’m sitting on a rope ladder

My legs through the bottom hole

Hands gripping the edges like a swing

The ladder comes from n o t h i n g

Suspending me over a cool, gray lake

Water lilies are in BLOOM, & they cover the surface of the lake

What appears to be a surface of glass

With no shoreline in sight

Beneath the glass surface

Instead of the underside of the lake

I see a sprawling city of towering sky scrapers at night

The lights from their windows making pin pricks in the dark

. . .

Carefully, I reach my foot out

My toe touches the water, & I hesitate –

But then push my whole foot in

Past the line of water,

And into dry air

I pull my foot out

And watch the water drop off my toe

Sending shock waves across the lake

Making it, for the moment

Look more like the water it is instead of glass

And blurring the metropolis underneath me

Nervous now of losing my grip

And falling

down

I tighten my hands around the rope

Another choice,

for what is life without them

Though this one seems obvious

up,

I’ll go because would be deadly

down

Some might think there is a third choice

To simply stay put

But if there is one thing this place has taught me

It’s to never stay in one place too long

So I start to climb

Soon I see, that the higher I go,

the colder it gets

By the time I’m stories above the strange water

My breath comes out thick, like dragon smoke

The ladder is frosted over

My lips and nails are blue

It’s trying to dissuade me

But it won’t work

It should know better by now

That I don’t mind the cold

(I never should have thought t h a t.)

Smoke, appears, & I look up to see,

that it has decided to use Fire, instead of Ice

The right side of the ladder burns & breaks

The whole thing swings as I’m jilted to the left

It clear doesn’t want me to go up any further

I must decide whether to continue up

At my own peril

Or go back down

And fall

Then the left side of the ladder begins the burn

When it snaps, I’ll fall with the ladder

Whether I want to, or not

It’s making the decision for me

I don’t like it when it makes decisions for me

So before the ladder burns out

I let go