Against a pallid sky stands a tall tower of polished concrete the color of liquid fog. It’s tall, like a man among sand, with an opening at its top, like four mouths feeding off of North, South, East and West. Inside hangs a giant uvula, static and silent, staring down life and anything that bleeds.

Was it once a church, or a school, maybe a mosque or a fire house? We don’t know. But on the dawn of a new day, the tower’s throat coughs and the tempered uvula starts to swing. Slowly at first, sometimes for a year or two, until the throat emits a roaring gong; a call for blood, warm and wet at the tower’s base.

Whoever built this Slay Bell, never counted on a millenium of favonian gusts, where the bell, and all others like it, rang for a solid thousand years. So here it stands, hungry, like a tall grey man on gemstone sand, befitting a scarecrow.

For high in the belfry, shivering in a nest of gossamer and corn silk, a young Raptor Phoenix oils its feathers, winds it’s heartstrings and takes to the sky.