Finally, they come. Their wings beat fast as they land, blowing sand in my open eyes. Tears form, but I do not move. I lie still on the hot, sun baked dirt. I wait for the right moment.

I feel the first peck on my side, right underneath my ribs. The vulture’s beak slices through the skin and hooks it, tearing a hole as it pulls away. I know what it’s after, but I do not move. I think to myself that perhaps I am sweating. Perhaps my heart is beating so loudly that it will betray me, and the vultures will take flight. Foolish thoughts. There is no water in my body. My blood flows like syrup, and the vultures lick it up with their little pointed tongues.

Reassurance gnaws on my shoulder. There is not much meat there so this second bird moves closer to my head. It bites at my neck, right where the bitches like to kiss me because it makes me shudder. And do I move? Not a flinch.

And so comes the third bird. This one hops right in front of my face. Hunger growls from deep within me. My jaw tightens. I salivate. My eyes travel up bony talons to thick legs, to a meaty breast, to a juicy neck, and then there is the vulture’s head, haloed by the sun.

I am ready. I am ready to feast. My muscles tense. My mind numbs. My spirit roars, and just when I am just about to strike, I feel my eye being ripped from its socket.

I scream at the top of my lungs, and my voice goes as high as a bitch in birthing. I shoot out my left hand blindly and close around something soft and fleshy. I kick, and I flail, and I screech. Two birds take flight from me, and I yell out after them. Rolling over onto my back, I lie there panting. I feel something scratching my forearm, and when I turn to look, I see out of my good eye a vulture raking me with his talons. I bring it back and forth across my body, smacking it hard across the ground on either side. It makes some gargling sounds, and I laugh.

I let it go.  Laying there panting, I watch that bastard bird limp away. It hops high and flutters its wings, but one is broken, and it crashes down in a mess of dingy feathers. I laugh and crawl myself up onto my legs. I walk over to the bird and kick it. It squawks at me. It apologizes for trying to eat me, and I tell the bird that he is forgiven. I understand. He was hungry. It’s easy to get hungry in the desert. I get hungry too.

I say that there is no harm done. I feel my side and my neck. The wounds have grown shallow. I put my dirty fingers in my new eye and start to cry. Painful white light blurs slowly into focus, and I see a wounded vulture trying to take flight, now in new perspective. My hunger pangs in my stomach. I wrap my brown fingers around pink flesh, right above its breast and right below its skull. With two hands I pull the bird’s neck taut.

Finally, I feast.