Every year, on the evening of the summer festival, the people of the delta line the riverbanks to watch the sky, a show they simply call the Obelisk Glide. This year the palace craftsmen have finished something special: a pair of wings made of gilded reeds and painted linen, shaped like a falcon's and light enough to ride the warm wind off the desert. Somebody has to try them, and pixel Cleopatra is not the kind of queen who watches from the shade.
She leaps from the top of the palace steps and catches the breeze. Below her the Nile glows orange, and ahead stand rows of obelisks, temple columns crowned with palm fronds and royal pillars striped in gold and lapis blue, each pair leaving just enough room to slip through. Golden ankhs drift on the wind as good-luck charms. The sun is sinking fast: how far down the river can she glide before it sets?
