We find Anna at midnight, reclining on the simple couch which serves as her bed by night and chair by day. It is set by the window of her high tower. There are no curtains, so she gazes straight out to the moon and the wheeling drift of stars. Is it they who rotate, in their majestic depth and brightness, or is it she who is moving imperceptibly as the long hours pass? She has learned, over the years, to judge their progress towards the breaking light of a new dawn, to snatch some sleep if she is lucky and to try to keep some mental record of the passing days. If she had a pencil or a piece of charcoal she would keep a tally of the days and seasons, hidden perhaps on an unobtrusive corner of the wall beside the basin in her adjoining bathroom. But she has nothing, nothing at all except what resides within her head and her memory. She can remember her name, but no longer has any clear idea of who she is or how long she has been here. Snatches of half remembered lines of poetry dredged from the recesses of her brain suggest the trace of school-days long past, and sometimes a haunting tune will come with unbidden sweetness into her mind. Beyond that, all is blankness. She knows that she is still herself, but who that self is becomes a daily enigma. 

Streaks of dawn now punctuate the sky as she rouses herself and waits eagerly for the only routine that paints the empty canvas of her day. She hears at last the approaching footsteps which are her sole contact with the outside world. The outer side of the double hatch in one of her white walls scrapes open. She knows that after the hatch bangs shut and the footsteps have receded, she will find food for the day, and her dirty plates and glass from yesterday removed. This is the only hint of a life of freedom beyond her prison tower. 

Anna eats, taking as long as she can to relish the figs, olives, plums and simple loaf of bread spread with a light goat’s cheese. It is pleasant enough, and has kept her healthy as the days, months and years have drifted by. She looks at her hands and wrists – surely now more wrinkled than before? Before what? Is she still beautiful? There is no mirror, nothing to remember what her own image looks like, nothing to explain what has provoked this strange and shadowy half-life. 

She moves back to the window, peering out as far as she can to glimpse the daylit scene far, far below. There is nothing there but the rolling desert sands, the strangely beautiful shape-changing coloured dunes which fold and re-form themselves in the winds that blow, from time to time, great plumes of dust into the air. Even on a bright day she is too far up to distinguish any signs of animal life, any rattle-snake skimming the surface or lizard scurrying about its quest for food. The rare appearance of a soaring falcon is a highlight to be relished for days. There are no signs of human life, no footprints, no pathways, no speech, no song. 

How can the human spirit survive a life such as Anna has faced, not just for weeks but for years? How, without books or voices or even a telescope or a telephone or a radio can life retain any shape or meaning? Anna somehow manages to live out these days, passing with such inescapable slowness, knowing that she somehow still retains an identity, even if she no longer knows what it is. How does she do it? There has been, as the years pass, just one gleam of hope, and she never knows when it is coming. 

The first time, it had caught her entirely by surprise. Gazing blankly out across the desert one day as usual she had heard, or thought she heard, the sound of distant trumpets. Straining her neck she leaned out as far as she could, choking back her fear of plunging to her death, until she could just make out, at the edge of her vision, the forms of men and women in coloured tabards making their way across the sands. As she gazed, more and more of them came into view, a great colourful cavalcade, some on horseback, and in the centre a huge, caparisoned tent borne on the shoulders of six burly retainers. Resting upon this was the crowned form of the most beautiful youth she had ever seen, although somewhere he touched, surely, a distant memory? It was indeed an image she could never forget. She had shouted – oh, how she had shouted, longing for him to look up, to acknowledge her presence, to come to her rescue. But her voice was carried away on the breeze. Nobody heard, no one looked up at her, and the great procession receded into nothingness across the dunes, now again empty and devoid of life. 

Would they ever come past again? She vowed to be ready this time as she abandoned her life once more to the wheeling stars and the desert dawns while days, hours, weeks and months crawled onwards. She must make a plan, she thought, just in case.

Wasn’t there a story of a maid called Rapunzel who had let down her hair? Anna’s own hair would never be long enough for anyone to climb, but at least perhaps she could attract attention with it. So every day she plucked some strands, rolling them and knotting them into a little ball. A year, perhaps more than a year passed and there, again, came the distant sound of trumpets as the cavalcade came by. The youth with the crown was a beautiful as ever, but his hands perhaps a little more lined. Anna leaned out as far as she could. As the caparisoned tent passed beneath her she shouted frantically and dropped out her ball of hair to attract his attention. Would he look up? But alas, just at that moment a gust of wind carried far off both her voice and her precious ball of hair. The moment passed and Anna, little used to showing her emotion, wept bitterly.

Will they ever come past again? She vows again to be ready. She needs a weight to carry her unwritten message to its target. So, every day she picks some more strands of her hair and this time saves a cherry stone here, a plum stone there, carefully, so that their disappearance won’t be noticed, and with love and hope in her heart she weaves them into her ball of hair. She waits, and the years go by. She begins to detect some strands of silver among the golden tresses she is weaving. At last, she hears once more the distant trumpets as she watches the great procession move toward her from the east. The beautiful king, she notes, is even more handsome with his slightly grizzled beard. Has her moment come? Alas, once more the wind carries her voice and her woven signal far, far away, and again she weeps. 

Yet still her spirit is not broken, and the very next day Anna begins again to collect strands of her locks and carefully garnered pips and stones. Soon her work is heavier than before, and one day a sudden crunch against a peach stone heralds the shedding of a tooth into her hand. She adds it to her work and with love and hope in her heart she weaves an exquisite silver globe, more beautiful than the loveliest bird’s nest ever seen, but heavy now as she cradles it in her palm.

Each day, each week, each month, each year she waits until, against all hope, she hears again the distant trumpets. The cavalcade draws near. She leans out as far as she can, sings out with the full force of her lungs, and drops the work of her ever-patient hands and heart. She watches, as it plummets straight and true towards its goal. This time, his eyes are raised to hers. He knows that she is there, and she knows that he knows.

At this very moment of recognition, Anna feels the floor of her tower tilt beneath her feet as, slowly, brick by whitened brick it crumbles, crumbles, carrying her downwards, ever downwards to her destiny. At the same time, the trumpets fall silent and the great cavalcade dissolves into the wind. At last, only the falcon remains, seizing with joy the vivid ball with which to line her nest. She soars up, up beyond the clouds, carrying it in her beak. From her lofty height she spies a pair of skeletons, beautiful and upright, striding confidently out across the dunes, hand clasped to bony hand.

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