[ WP ] In the middle of a vast desert there is a single , shiny black skyscraper . What is in it and why is it there ?

Across the parlous wastes, the darkened tower scaled to the clouds themselves. Grit ’ s journey had worn him out, but he would not yield. For years the skyscraper mocked him, telling the whole world that Grit McKeown would never know what secrets it held. ‘ Its wonders are what mortal men pray to ’ his father told him every day, ‘ And it is the birth right of any McKeown bold enough to cross the scorching planes ’. His father would then cough and ease into a gentler cadence. ‘ Of course I ’ m too old now, Lord knows. But Grit, I tell ya, the dust-winds are coming. Every year they get worse and our farm shrinks. By the time I pass, you ’ ll have to make a decision, Grit. The farm won ’ t be able to support even just one person. You ’ ll either have to go out north, where Hutchs and Molls headed, or you can try and navigate the desert ’. 
 
 The desert. Cuss McKeown said those two words with the same reverence he usually reserved for God and Death. To Cuss McKeown they were all one and the same. This land was McKeown land, and beneath the voluminous tracts of desert laid more McKeown land. He told Grit he wouldn ’ t judge him for leaving, that he was glad the last man among the sands would be a McKeown man. And despite the familiarity of his daily tale, he never really expected Grit to travel to where the sun rises and seek out the tower. Asking Grit to do that would be consigning him to die. On the day Grit found Cuss lying face down next to the bean chutes, he packed up his things and headed east. 
 
 For many days Grit had been pacing under the skyscraper ’ s silhouette. He was relaxed in the shade, though there was the fear it would get too cold during the nights. But Grit had surpassed the worst of the dust-winds and come out stronger: a chilly night would not defeat him. After the first day beneath its shadow, Grit began to awe at the leviathan construct he sought out. Having seen it in the distance his whole life, he had no true indication of its mammoth scale. There was no doubt that it was supported by some ancient magic, some eldritch construction not of this realm. Grit could make out a door, with a figure standing by, waving at him. 
 
 Could this be a mirage, a symptom of desert induced madness? He got nearer to the figure, who himself seemed impossibly tall. ‘ Wait ’, he thought- herself. Maybe he was indeed mad, but it seemed to a woman. She looked like a girl he once knew, but that was impossible. The only women he ever knew were his mother and his cousins, Maggie and Ann, all gone. She was definitely bizarre looking, though. She was dressed like a court jester on stilts, but she had a crown of thorns on her head. She was bleeding profusely from her crown, but she didn ’ t appear to notice, singing to herself with a look of manic ecstasy on her face. In her right hand she held a ruby sceptre and from her left hand she dangled a whip. 
 
 Grit approached her with a tense caution. Without even looking, she struck the tower with her sceptre and it collapsed backwards, as if it had been a propped up cardboard cut-out. She had destroyed the building effortlessly. Grit collapsed onto his weak knees in exasperation, anguish and confusion. His eyes bubbled with tears and he looked to this mysterious singing phantom for reasoning. 
 
 “ It ’ s all a metaphor for the war waged between illusion and reality ” she called to the last McKeown. With that she disappeared with the dust-winds. 

