The dream begins like this:

Gunpowder + ashes = ink

Combustible writing

Behind the words, a window

Word/wall obstruction removed: leap through.
Look.

Some cities only have people living in them.

Some cities ARE people.

Clinging together for structure, with neither brick nor stone to weigh them down.

I had a longer name, once; I haven't been able to remember the rest of it for some time now. Most people I know are like that.

I got this job when I fell from a higher building, and decided to try something different.

Before I fell, I was something different as well; I used to be human. Whenever you change which building you are part of, you become like the others of that building. This is a building of elves. I suppose we're called elves, at any rate- it's close enough.

I'm not too good with words and names.

I like this job- it has a wonderful view. So many people haven't got any view at all; no fresh air. Some people prefer being a Tower or a Wall to being a Foundation, though- it's all personal preference.

Me, I like watching the ground stretch out below us as we drift with the wind... all uninhabited perfect green, as empty as the sky, but a little more interesting to me somehow.

Through the grapevine I once heard word from Aver, one of our more newly-added Towers. He fell here from many buildings higher up- higher and farther away than the eye can see.

(People often fall. Sometimes they fall by accident, if someone's grip loosened. Sometimes they fall on purpose. It's really the only way to get around between buildings or to different positions.)

Aver is tall, thin, with white hair like tangled silk. I'm not sure why people always look a little bit the same- even when they change buildings and shapes. They just do. Lots of things here have no explanations.

He brought with him word of other places. He's been part of many different buildings: buildings made of small, rusty-furred animals, buildings made of trolls- everything. Most of these kinds of people I have heard of before.

He said that there are several buildings, far away, where all of the people can fly- by themselves, with no help at all. Imagine that! I've never even heard of that before. You could always go back the way you came if you fell by accident. You could go back and forth between buildings as you wished, talk with whomever you liked, so long as the other building was of flying-people too. Nobody would be lost to the earth below us.

Maybe someday we'll drift over one of those buildings.

Much as I love my job as a foundation, I'll be sure to warn everyone when I let go of this building in order to drop down and join the other one.

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