Towers

In a very tall tower deep within the island of wilderness surrounded by the several townships of the land there was a girl. She didn't know how she had come to be there, or why she had come to be there, or when she had come to be there, or if she had even come to be there at all. It most often seemed that her and the tower's existence were inextricably wound, that the tower existed because she existed and that she existed because the tower existed, and that asking how she came to be in this tower was like asking what it is like to not be.
As often as this did seem to be the case, she even more often wished to escape from this tower. It was lonely, and the walls at times loomed so oppressively over her, taunting her weakness and isolation, that she would sob painfully so the noise she created could provide some type of company.
But how could she leave? The tower had no apparent way down, no staircase, no door, and only a single window that opened onto a balcony many yards above the ground. She could always jump over the balustrade and fall to her death; she would be dead, of course, but she would also be free of the tower.
She, in spite of everything, enjoyed living at most times, however. She enjoyed reading the books that would appear in the tower, she enjoyed the sunlight through the trees and watching the squirrels run through the branches and the birds fly about and build nests. She enjoyed her own company. It was just the empty that crept up on her in her utter aloneness, the thought that maybe I don't exist.
She spent a good third of her time planning towards other methods of escaped, but they were never quite well enough planned out to be gone through. For example she considered making a rope from old fabric she had no use for – clothing outgrown or soiled or torn beyond repair, an extra blanket worn through in one spot – but after carefully estimating the distance to the ground, and the approximate length of rope she could make she found that there wasn't enough to reach all the way down and back again, which wouldn't do at all. She had decided before that she would not undertake the feat without at least two full lengths of rope, in case one failed to hold the entire time she made her way down, and though falling from half the height of her tower wouldn't result in certain death it would result in probable death.
Living alone in a tower all her life had made the girl rather overly cautious. One might suppose that timidity is a learned trait, and that having never failed at any adventurous endeavor she would have no reason to fear failure. However, this girl was of the sort naturally inclined towards timidity, and though she had never experienced any failure to dampen her spirits she had also never experienced any success to bolster them, and years of solitude lead to a tendency to over think and brood, as there wasn't much else to distract her from such past times.
Another method she thought of was to climb down a near by tree. The most immediate sort of wilderness to the tower was dense forest, so there were several trees very close by. The trunk of the nearest one was just feet away to the right of the edge of the balcony, the very top of it at the same height as the roof of the tower, and a limb hanging just over the balcony. It seemed a little frail here, but closer to the tree the limb seemed sturdy enough that she thought if she could just make it about a yard out she should be free of the danger of it snapping under her weight.
She would often pull herself through the window out onto the balcony with it in her mind that she would do it, that she would swing her legs over the balustrade, reach, and pull herself as far out on to the branch as possible. After that she would have no choice, really, her adrenaline would take over and before she knew it she would be down the tree and on the ground. She would decide what to do and where to go next; once out of the tower she could do anything. Anything at all, once she was free.
But she never made it to the branch. She would go to the balustrade, determined that she would make it onto that limb, but then something would happen. Something would happen and she would find that she couldn't. She couldn't shift her legs the correct way, or tense her arms in preparation to life herself up onto the balustrade, she couldn't make any movement at all but those that would bring her back inside where she would go to her bed and fall asleep exhausted.
Once, just once, she was able to make those preliminary motions. She had somehow made the movement necessary, though it all felt a bit fuzzy, very clear and almost painfully sharp in its fuzziness, and she sat on the balustrade, both legs dangling so far above the ground. As she sat there gathering her resolve, destiny at the stable door impatient to be released and to carry her away, she was suddenly overtaken with the certainty that at any moment the very balustrade upon which she was seated and was responsible for supporting the entirety of her weight and life would collapse unless she relieved it by either grabbing that branch or retreating back onto the balcony. She would die; she knew she would die, unless she immediately removed herself.
In a single motion of astoundingly graceful cowardice, the girl in the tower panicked and swung her legs back over the balustrade and tumbled to the floor. After a stunned breathless moment in which the pain of the hard stone hitting her soon-to-be-badly-bruised hip and ankle registered, she became certain that she had fallen three feet, only three feet. She quietly began to cry in pathetic relief, still lying as she had fallen on the floor. She cried in relief that she was still safe and alive, and then she cried in shame that she was still safe and alive. She cried in shame as she cried in relief until she choked and gagged on her own spit and mucus and tears, and sputtering for breath she crawled away from the limb and the ledge and the perilous balustrade until she sat huddled by the window, her forehead on her knees, hiding her face from the forest.
After that incident she abandoned this plan. She did her best to forget it had ever existed, but her memory was far too sharp and far too spiteful. Once she was able, closing her eyes and holding her breath and going head first and ungracefully, to rush back inside through the window, she didn't come out again for weeks. She couldn't face the trees that hated her; she couldn't bear to be in the way of the wind.
Many other ideas for escape floated through her mind in the hours and days and years she spent in the tower. She would hold a sheet, two corners in each hand, and when she jumped it would catch in the breeze and gently coax her to the ground. Maybe one day she would find a hidden door that would lead to the staircase that must have brought her here. Maybe she would learn to fly.
Or maybe, maybe one day someone would come and bring her something that would help her down, and that person would be there to encourage her and to catch her in case she fell from so high. But this was the most far fetched idea of all. Who could be foolish enough to care enough to come all the way here, to scale such a tall tower all in the hopes of helping such a helpless, hopeless girl?