It's the end of an era, and the sun is plummeting. The birds fly away from the horizon as if it were on fire, yellows and reds licking at the early stars. They flicker, fading in from far away. Taking our place as we flicker out, a little like falling asleep.

Everything that comes after this will be a dream.

Among the crowds we're only one beneath the sky. Standing in alleys, sitting on fire escapes with our heels swinging. All limp cigarettes and vacant stares. The thrushes pass by overhead and we shiver, just a little further out of phase with the world of mice and men. My fingertips are buried in my palm, trying to hold on, animal instinct trapped and whimpering out around a lazy monumental will. Between lost moments our shadows wax and wane. The blood never comes. It's already left us, and the moon is taking its place.

Trembling without something to keep it tethered my silhouette flows like water, like falling leaves, like fable, guttering and fluid, alien and cold, open and vast. We are all folding away into each other and the night unfurling: oblivious as the dark builds a personal pressure. It doesn't matter, we're burning each other out, broken and empty. We leave our shadows scarred into brickwork tattoos and tales. We're becoming just another dead language, a series of small walls, dolmen. Fading from the present to the past we echo like nightingale song, we tremble with change, and we're gone.

The sun rises as an eastern phoenix, searing blue into the black and eating stars. Leaving their blood across the sky. The dawn of a new day to stir us all from slumber. We come like fury out of corners, crossroads, and kisses.

The world is dead. Long live the world.

Long live the king, and the dream.