Warm Masonry

My claws crunched into the coarse pea-gravel bedded in tar. Behind the parapet stood a thick masonry chimney stack, radiating residual warmth from the flue beneath. I approached with measured tread. I lowered my center and settled back against the soot-darkened brick. Dry heat seeped straight into my back plates. Between my feet lay a flat piece of broken slate. I nudged it with one claw, bedding it flat into the gravel to shore up my footing. Across the roofline, yellow city lights blinked through the dark. The brick wall cuts the wind. Solid roost. The post holds.