I glided down and perched gently on the top of the parapet, a bit out of breath. It was a long hot flight. Had taken off just like that, didn't wait to eat anything. Longed for the priest, his stories, the fragrant rice he cooked for lunch. The sun had reached the middle of the sky. I looked at it and squinted. Moved a bit further across the parapet, into the shadow of the palm fronds that overlay a portion of this broken house. The tree grew beside the house, and the priest's hut was right across. I loved this vantage point.

The black temple glowed in front of me, and the lake shimmered and smoldered in the afternoon sun. Hot vapors rose in spirals and obscured any trace of my home on the other bank. The afternoon lake resembled a hot watery nothingness anchored to reality solely by the temple, which stood like the only solid thing on this bank, as it had stood there for God knows how many centuries.

I jumped down from the parapet and landed beside the temple well. Years of use had eroded the stone floor surrounding the well and created several depressions. They were always full with water. I dipped my beak into one of them and drank. My fatigue vanished with every sip.

Satisfied, I scratched my right ear. Killed a mite, tidied my feathers for a while, and cawed for the priest, twice. Three jumps and I moved up to his doorsill. Stood there, cawed louder, and waited.

No sounds came from inside the hut. Was he asleep? He usually answered my second caw. Puzzled, I cawed again, warily. Then an unknown rustle, someone was coming to the door, someone I didn’t know. I jumped back to the well. The door opened and a person came out. It wasn’t the priest. It was…. A woman?