The scaffolding remains, a ghost structure against the clean blue of the everyday sky. It was never meant to be permanent, this temporary frame we built for climbing. Over all, the weight of expectation settled, a fine dust on the unfinished surfaces. We stood beneath the levels of function, where the blueprints blurred into wishful thinking. Each rung, a promise whispered, then secured with the dull thud of a hammer blow. It was noted briefly, this effort, tucked away in the margin of a ledger. A quick line in the record, a passing mention of the structure attempted, the altitude we aimed for, the breath caught high up in the thin air. Trying is a verb that never quite settles, a motion caught between what was intended and the solid fact of what now is. It was never what it is meant to be. The shape it took held its own strange logic, a geometry only understood by the builder, the one who placed the final, uncertain beam. It is what it was, a moment crystallized. And that was my horizon then, that precarious perch, the view slightly skewed. To look down was to see the ground recede, to look up was to meet the indifferent vastness. The initial design, faded now, like old ink beneath a persistent sun. The intention frayed at the edges, worn smooth by the handling of reality. We learned the language of stress points, the quiet groan of materials pushed too far. It was a lesson taught in elevation, a brief, sharp education in ascent. Now, the quiet aftermath. The tools put away, the site cleared, mostly. But the memory of the structure persists, a blueprint etched behind the eyelids. Over all, we move now on level ground, or what passes for it in the ordinary afternoon. Yet sometimes, in the deep hush of quiet work, a phantom vibration rises from the soles of the feet. The echo of the climb, the brief tenure in the higher atmosphere. It was noted, yes, that brief flicker of ambition, a footnote in the ongoing document of days. And that was my truth for a season, to measure height against the flatness, to know the strain of reaching, the sweet, momentary victory of the view. What it was, remains only as a feeling now, a shadow cast by a thing that is no longer there.

What to call it after now