The Roof of Creation

...above the roof of creation there is a a world of pipes and vanes, groaning with the breeze; wrought iron and rusted brass, filling the sky from brim to brim. it is a quiet, calm place, not quite real and yet more solid than a dream, ethereal and yet material. the sky is painted grey and umber, like dust upon a dry riverbed.

...it does not rain here, nor does the wind blow, for no seasons pass in a world without a compass. and yet there is life, of a sort; pigeons of all colours flock in the sky, and nest in the cold embrace of rusting weathervanes. they relieve themselves upon the forgotten statuary of dead gods and lost heroes.

...there are even men here, if they are truly men. they call themselves gargoyles, but they are not hewn of stone nor possessed of monstrous forms. tall and thin, with a pale grey skin, they gather in secret hunts beneath the open sky, searching for the lost pages of their holy books that are scattered across the rooftops. they believe themselves to be the animate forms of the statuary that adorns the world, mortal foes to the pigeons who live in the sky above. no women walk amongst their number; and they do not speak of the means of their birth to outsiders.

...some of their holy men can fold paper into origami spirits that have a spark of life. they speak in whispered metaphors and iambic phrases, snatched from the mouth of their god. it is blasphemy and black sorcery to them to form new phrases without the glyphs of the holy apocrypha to guide them.

...above the roof drifts an eternity of red balloons, vivid in the quiet eternal twilight of the world. each carries a small object aloft, from forks to baskets to origami cranes. occasionally, a pigeon will nest upon one.

...sometimes the rusted weathervanes will twist and turn despite the lack of the slightest breeze. the gargoyles consider this to be the most fateful of omens, and follow their direction with intent concentration.