The road meanders west and south, then winds along the riverbank, though high outcrops of rock upon which perch the ruins of an ancient fort. All that remains is the base of a wall, the outline of ramparts, and half-whispered stories of maidens and heroes. Take quiet steps and the road will lead you past cliffs, green with pine and birch and elms; you may smell moss and strange blossoms. There are days when the sky is cloudless and blue. Other days, dramas of love and tragedy contort the silent billows of condensation into the strangest, most arresting shapes. And on still other days, clouds seem to settle, though more accurately, they are exhaled from the river. They rise in silence, in an effort to join those already high above. In some way, this may be a mirror to the human drive to ascend, though the depths from which we attempt to rise are as nebulous and ill-defined as the various heavens we say we seek. Ah, but at any rate... ...when sky and river merge in this strange, vaporous conspiracy, it is easy to glimpse other places through that veil. Perhaps, you can see something from the past: the ramparts and towers of some long-fallen castle. On other days, you may see the mists of Venus: those strange vapors of romance and fantasy that bear little resemblance to the carbon dioxide and corrosive acids in an atmospheric cauldron hot enough to melt lead. At any rate, you see something. It is there. It is silent. And until the fog leaves, it is as real as the city it replaces. **** As always, thank you for viewing and commenting, on this and on previous works!