The Phoenix Motel

The Phoenix Motel languishes at the end of a long dusty highway, the bugs on your windscreen betraying how hard and fast the drive has been. The rooms are filling quickly as they always do this time of year. The smart money is getting locked in for the scorpion's moon. Rebirth for a keen singeing and a wild night you never forget. These rooms tell the tales of all such moons. Every one a revelation and a riddle, dressed in black and jiving with the shadows.

The stayers have been here since last season, the cinders still balling in the corners. Their eyes shine with tales of transformation. Their lips quiver over the cost. They speak in hallowed tones as the changeling moon begins to take shape. The poisonous tail they dread and crave rattling again from just beyond the edge. The veil thins as the air thickens, balance and order uneasy with one another. Everyone can smell the sulphur and sense the flames licking at the sign blinking through the window.

Phoenixing is a complicated choreography that only the foolhardy and courageous pursue. Reception is heaving with those who haven't found what it takes and refuse to look over their shoulder. You shove your way through a mass of pointing fingers and disdain, resolute.

At the peeling desk you hand over your identity just to get your mits on a dance card. You sign your life away with a flourish built on gulping daring and an eerie surrender that presupposes your intention. There is no going back. Wistful delusion must be sacrificed on the altar of rebirth. If you cannot trade what is known all too terribly well for the promise of fresh wings, nothing will fly.

You strap on the shoes and feathers you get served up and push through the double doors. A vast space opens up to you, ripe with risk. Glory days are made here, staring out over a desert shimmering with the fear of death. Catepillars that never finished their cocoon struggle along the floor. The band warms up in the corner with a lilting refrain that kicks you hard in the nostalgias. You turn to face the bartender as the light catches on his horns.

What'll it be, he grins.

•

Words c. Kerrie Basha 2019
From Morsel, my first book of tales. Yours to have and hold here, darklings