I peckz the liver and I eatz the liver. Everyday the same old liver, peckz the liver and eatz the liver, flying through a thick smoggy soup, peckz it and eatz it and I go on with the bloody, iron tissue in my lickel vulture belly. I dunno what this bloke did but he has got it rough, cuz I gotz the sharpest beak of all the vullies here, and whenever we gather we compare and whenever we compare I win and whenever I win they all getz jealous and say "hey, buddy, why don't you get outta here and do some work, then maybe your beak will blunten" but they don't know what kinda work I do and I don't tell em so I raise my sharp-as-a-lightning-bolt beak and snoot snoot away, feeling good but also bad. I peckz the liver sadly thinking about my friends. Maybe they just don't like old liver-pecking vullies.
𓀡
He comes again as the obsidian sun rises, shining negatively, as though it were a lump of coal on the sky's barbecue. That feathered demon, his beak lithe and pointed at its rounded peak, diving deep into my entrails, newly-formed, devouring parts of me that, living, I did not feel. But now I feel them. Every sinew is exposed, every delicate organ-piece feels as sensitive as an eyeball, or glans, or inner-cheek. His body is large and cumbersome, yet firmly does he sit on my chest, his plummaged arse in my face, and he feasts to his contentment on my squidgy offal. The pain rips through my legs and chest like a steam-train using my nervous system as its rickety old tracks, the rusty wheels screeching over my sensitive bits in a nails-down-the-blackboard kind of pain. What did I do? It was rape or theft or something. I don't remember.
𓅯
So I resolvez to tell my friends what I'z been up to all this time. I come home after work, flying above the fields of wretched men, being punished for their mortal naughties, and I seez the big vully family all gathered together. So I sayz "Guess where Iz been!" And they turn their backs. I'm not wanted, so I goez.
𓀡
He comes back and I groan with whatever breath is left in me. My muscles tense with fullness, prepared to be stripped and gnawed. If I could reconcile myself with my sin, perhaps the pain would be sweeter, the kind of saccharine tang of penitence. But I don't remember what I did.
𓅯
What to do, what to do? Cast out, I iz. Let go, I am, without mateyz or matez. What use is a lonely vulture? Not occupied by his biological urge to eatz. Just occupied by loneliness.
𓀡
Another day, another liver. More time to reflect, but I've stopped reflecting. If I looked in a pool of water - if I could - no-one would look back. I am a nameless vessel of punishment.
𓅯
One day, when I was early flying to work (because I likez to beat the traffic jamz - those eaglez take the same routez as I have and I get very annoyed when their golden feathers are flapping in me face) I seez another vully through the gasseous sky flying the same way as I iz, over the red hot waves of Phleggy, my favourite river (cuz it’s nice and warm to fly over, ya see). So I callz to him,
“Oi! Vully boy! Get yaself over this way! Let’s have a chat!” But he doesn’t wanna talk to me, with his dark head and red eyes, cuz nobody wants to. I getz sad, and by the time I reach my big boy’s liver, I don’t feel like eating at all.
Course, I do. Cuz that’s my job. I peckz the liver and I eatz the liver.
𓀡
I sleep when he isn’t here. The bird. I am thrown, yelping, into nightmares, as soon as I close my eyes. But at least he isn’t here. I dream of before, and it is all distorted. The warm womb of my home is rotten, split and moulding, and it smells of diseased fish. My mother, once so cheery that not even the dark skies of her son’s sin could shadow her spirits, is haunted, her face sallow and spotted with the acne of regret. Great pustules on his chin explode on me and burn my skin. Just as I am writhing, in the pus of my mother’s face, I wake up, and the bird is there. But in the moment of waking, in the bleary-eyed confusion of seeing again that black sun and smelling the acrid stench of my own guts, I feel like I am remembering what I did… whether I want to or not.
𓅯
I decidez I’z gonna try another way to make me some mateyz. So I fly to another part of the landz, past
Phleggy’s bloody flow, over to the bejewelled pillars of the entrance of Tarty, where there livez Hydra the snakey queen. I land on one of her long, shiny neckz, and I peck lightly… just to let her know I’z there! She hisses but she’s always been friendly to me, even though all them other vullies won’t be. I askz her, I askz,
“Hey hydy, how come no other vullies likez me?” She hisses and a big snakey head wiggles up from below to stare me straight in my eyezies. It bobz. She is deep blue, with flecks of purple plumz, and I think she’s the prettiest snakey queen there iz down in Tarty.
“Ssssso jealoussssss.”
“Ya think so?” Her answer makes me feel good… for a little while. Then I’z sad again. “How do I fix it though?”
“Sssssuck it up.” She sayz, and I getz the feelingz she’s done with my visiting, cuz her lickel snakey face is getting ever closer to me - sniffling and piffling with its tongue juiced and flicking, she hisses deeper at me. I make my vully way away.
𓀡
Today, I woke up to another bird on my body. Another vulture. This one was bigger, its beak sharper - if I could conceive of such a thing. I knew it wasn’t my vulture because of its head feathers - instead of a slate grey colour, they were black. Black as my dreams. I was woken from a jagged tongue of earth impaling me as my mother watched on. She spat at me. She told me she’ll never forgive me for what I’ve done.
But what have I done? My legs tingle as I wake, as though the memory is in them. I was running. Or jumping.
The new vulture stops eating, just for a second, and turns to me. Its coal-hued head bears red eyes, deep-set, as though they have been branded onto the bird. Red like I have never seen before. Redder than blood. Redder than my fresh pain. The new vulture seems to wink before it returns to feasting on my innards. In the blistering blindness of my agony, I wish for my old vulture’s return.
𓅯
Off to work! Though I’z lonely, at least I’z got something to do. Something to occupy me in the darkened, blackened days. I swoopz through the sulphur tunnelz, my featherz singed as I getz too close to the wallz that bubble with the yellow stink. That’z alright. I’z a handsome vully, with or without my plummagez. I emerge into darkness, but I can see it. There’z my patch below, my little hill of employ, and there’z my big giant boy waiting to get et.
But wait - I seez as I swoopz: there’z a big vully already on him! Is that me? Have I drifted again? Looking down on my very self here in Tarty, already at work but also in the skiez? This makes no sense, so I drift slowly down, ready for a confrontationz. Nobody takez my job and getz away with it!
“Oi, vully!” I shoutz, landing in the ash. The big vully turns, and I see it’s big, awful head, as black as bruised fingernails, with its big ruby eyez. The vully I saw before! It turns back to eating. But that’s my liver! I peckz it and I eatz it! Not you! “Oi! Vully! This here’z my liver!”
“It’s ours now.” The vully’s voice is deep and evil. I knowz in my soulz that it’s a bad vully here. Not an honest bird like I iz. So I’z a bit nervous, replying,
“Ours?” The big vully turnz to me, as if I’z an idiot. Me! He’z the one who’s at the wrong liver!
“I’ve been commissioned to work here now. I was on Prometheus, over in the North quarter. But they’ve put eagles on him now. So I’m here. Deal with it.” I thinkz before I answer. I thinkz of what he’z saying. Eaglez? They were flying to the North this morning. Hm. Even though I’z suspicious, I’z happy to have someone to talk to who isn’t a great big hydra head. So I hop on my giant boy, my feetz on his lipz so he stops screaming for a second - hard to think with all them screamz going on!
“Alright then. I’z Demetrius.” I say, proudly.
“Hank.” The big vully says, in between chompz. I hop over and help him with the pecking and the eating. We peckz the liver and we eatz the liver. And I finally haz a friend.
𓀡
Two vultures wake me from my fitful nightmaring, their beaks deep in my organs. I remember now. The girl’s terrified eyes, my hands gripping her wrists. The awful, awful screaming. I remember what I did.