I can’t look.
A gang of black vultures are circling the manicured street I’m on, and I know they’re not here for the view.
I can’t look, but my eyes do. They race to find the crush of splattered guts and bloody fur on the asphalt. A possum hit by a driver who ran off in a fast car. Breakfast rises up in my throat. My belly trips.
The vultures whoosh in. The majesty and nightmare of their beating wings etched in the azure sky is a swirling dance of death so beautiful and macabre, I am electrified.
They surround the corpse and tear into it, feathers thrashing as they vie for the choicest cut. I watch as they stretch the dead body and yank it apart, ripping flesh from bone with the blades of their hissing teeth. I am sickened and have rarely felt more alive.
Human voices rise in and outside me. Cries of disgust, outrage and primordial fear. I see us in my mind’s eye, around the table at an all-you-can-eat buffet, gorging on the feast. My heart roars as grunting vultures line the shores of my inner beast. I will not look away.
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The tail-end of the meal, filmed by my husband. Most of the vultures are gone, having already had their fill.
Eyes by: Ruiizu-Chan
For more posts about Roadkill, chew on these:
All Living Things 1 and All Living Things 2.
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FAN THE FLAMES
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GOOD NEWS FLASH: The people of my beloved city Montréal and the province of Québec have booted a divisive political party from power in a recent, landslide vote. While a woefully corrupt party will replace them, I rejoice in the fact that we are learning to use our voice and rocked the vote. Feel the power, people, SPEAK UP.
Happy 80th birthday, fabulous, feminist Gloria Steinam! Showing us the way.
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26 Responses to All You Can Eat
Another good post, Brenda. The description of the vultures ripping the body apart with their sharp teeth … You can almost see it happening.
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Thanks, Jerry. Glad I didn’t include pix.
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That is so horrible and so absolutely perfect. After the initial horror I couldn’t help but think, “Now then I guess that’s right.”
Couldn’t help but wonder if there was a connection between the vultures and the politics?
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Thanks! Didn’t catch that metaphor myself. Here’s another: we citizens have a voice and we should use it if we don’t want to land up like the possum on the street.
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Great story to accompanying a rather gruesome scene. I guess it’s everyone to themselves. In the end, it’s about survival or is it greed? Or Maybe it’s fear. Great piece, Brenda.
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You nailed it, Amy. Survival, greed, fear.
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Hello Brenda. How would you feel about me copying and pasting your most recent Burns the Fire into my blog. This would go for other ones in future too and I would always request your permission before re-posting anything of yours or anyone else’s for that matter. I would of course give full credit to you and I would name the post. If you would like, you can provide me with the exact wording I can use to accompany your posts, now and in the future. The question is my dear Brenda, is do you want to be associated with me? I am averaging about 40 hits per day since inception in October of last year but am over 2000 visits. My goal had been 1000 visits.
Turns out that the community just lives and loves gossip. Just eats it up. If I wanted to risk libel suits (see JL 169 and if you want the original I can send you a copy); it wasn’t that bad, actually.
Anyway for those three days, JL’s 169 to 171 inclusive, I had approximately 2000 hits in a three day period, including over 970 on the first day. All this has skewed my Analytics artificially upward; I think that saying that I average between 40 and 50 hits/day is fair.
I can get those kinds of blog numbers anytime I want but I’m saving that for my upcoming book. Please let me know how you feel.
Sent from my iPad
>
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Thanks, Jerry. More exposure for the work. All you have to do is click on REBLOG. It’s above the comments in every post.
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Bren I know I’ve told you this but I’ll say it again; you are such a profound and genuine writer. I’m really proud of you, and this blog platform you created. I support you,always.
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Brenda, I love your mind’s eyes.
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I love how you think. Your words are so visual, and I watch vultures with the same fascination and dread.
Please feel free to visit my resurrected blog, we might be soul mates. It’s called Tripping Over Cancer, and is about life really…and how it changes.
Blog on, I’ll be back
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Thanks for your kinds words. Looking forward to your blog.
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Did you work on the screenplay for ‘The Birds’? Great, grisly, engrossing post.
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No one has ever called my work ‘grisly’ before (blush). I’m too scared to watch The Birds.
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How fortunate I am to have found your creative spot in the world. You write beautifully. I am looking forward to getting yo know you better!
Lori D.
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Thanks, Lori! Glad to have found yours, too.
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Your depiction of the vultures describes my kids’ descent upon their chocolate bunnies last weekend. 😉
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I’m glad the message is coming through!
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Brenda, I love Quebec. I love Montreal despite the vultures. As for the separatists, well, I might be French but I never understood why Quebec would want to be independent. I must be missing something.
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I really like this post, I would never have thought to write about roadkill but you made it interesting! Love your blog!
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Anything can be made interesting. Thanks and welcome!
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Great post! I found another post that readers may find equally interesting, but with a comedic bend.
http://sequelagorilla.wordpress.com/
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Reblogged this on sequelagorilla and commented:
Interesting post
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Thank you kindly. I can see we share a fascination with the human beast.
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Enjoyed the blog, thank you. I must strenuously object to the likening of vultures to politicians. Vultures do not need insults like this (lol)
This makes me think of something my dad taught me. A few years back just after the Selassi ousting in Ethiopia the first starvation took place and on TV was these photos of vultures following starving kids. I expressed my sympathy to my dad but he told me. “Nature has taken over and people breeding like flies must expect to die like flies.”
It sounded cruel but on really thinking about it I could see the common logic.
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Welcome and thanks for your comment. I’m going to think about what your Dad said.
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