The tower has no top and no bottom but stretches endlessly away in either direction.
Cats nest in the vines that soften the gray stone and speak fairy tales.

They file into the classroom.
Rows of old desks aglow with light, golden smooth with nervous hands’ polishing.
It is the first day, and they are six:
Erica, Janet and Rachel on one side of the aisle;
Jillian, Sheila and Colleen on the other.

The professor walks in, black robes spread behind her like penguin wings.
She keeps her hair short, and her enemies shorter–
this at least is the gossip among the infinite dorms.
Vines have taken root and curl greenly from her collar,
from her cuffs,
peep from under her hem.

She takes the podium.
“So,” she says,
“You are come, all of you,
I trust,
with a deep love of learning
and a deep ambivalence for action;
you have come to pry under rocks,
to finger slime,
to tickle the underside of the universe.
Noble goals.
And I will teach you–
and others will teach you–
of many things. Of secrets ways,
hidden chants,
the thousand rules of power.
You will know, and you will see,
and what you see you shall never again unsee.”

There is a pause.

“So,” she says,
“Let us begin.”