The Eagle soared above the ruins, wing tips jewelled with blood in the rays of the dying sun. Far below, a shape moved. The eagle swooped, the black diamond glint in her eye unreadable in the incipient gloom. Down, wheeling and circling like a dancer, the eagle spiralled towards the parched earth, talons skittering across the roof of an abandoned vehicle as she landed. Rusticles were already bleeding from its wounds, fatal wounds that had been sustained so long ago that scabby bubbles had formed round the gashes.

Head cocked, the eagle glanced swiftly round. A piece of paper caught her eye, as it rustled like autumn leaves in the chilling air. The majestic bird notices the faded words, the almost unrecognisable images, but had no interest in the once urgent banner headline. Even the material itself was of no current significance. It was late autumn, swiftly glistening into winter; she would not need to consider nest-building until spring.

The cold ruffled into the soft downy feathers on her legs. For once, she had been mistaken. There was no prey worthy of her effort here.

The eagle stood, as if listening, smelling the incoming rain on the wind. Time to head for the distant escarpment that served her as home.

With one last glance round at the windowless edifices, rising like nameless tombstones, the only epitaph for a time gone by, she spread her wings. The Eagle came from an ancient, noble race; what cared she that the buildings erected by some insignificant earthbound creature were crumbling, inevitably, into dust?

Slowly, the eagle rose into the air and headed for home. She did not glance down as the detritus from a lost civilisation drifted across tarmac that was fast being reclaimed by the green shoots which were even then breaking up its artificial surface. Tomorrow, she would hunt again, far from this place of ghosts and garbage, and she would be as successful as she usually was. With supreme confidence in her skill, strength and ability, the eagle soared, flying ever higher, until, at last, no human eye could have spotted her, even had there been any human eye to look in her direction.