(WARNING: Perhaps you might want to read yesterday's blog first to put this in context. This is fiction. This is a writing exercise looking at the perspective of the vulture in the Pulitzer Prize winning photo taken in 1994.)
The vulture sits on a dead tree and remembers the land as it once was, green, until a fly buzzes around his head and distracts him.
Weak with hunger, he loosens the grip of his razor claws on the branch and sways from foot to foot.
Through half-closed eyes, he gazes across the searing barren plains.
There!
An animal crumples to the earth under the puny weight of its own skeletal form.
Better than nothing, thinks the vulture.
Suddenly revived and alert, the vulture casts an eye about the sky.
No other vultures.
With minimum effort, he sweeps low, moving but his wing tips.
The rising heat fills his wings but burns his belly while the sun bakes his back.
He circles once.
The winged flight casts a shadow upon the lonely child barely breathing, barely conscious, unprotected.
The vulture's claws raise dust as they hit the earth.
He stumbles, panting, moving awkwardly towards what he thinks is wayside carrion.
And then he sees a man.
The vulture stops.
So close and yet ...
Can't he see that the child is dead?
The vulture waits.
Is he going to shoot me?
The vulture waits.
They are three grotesque statues.
Finally, the man shoots, his camera buzzes and clicks.
The man stands up, disappointed, and circles an imaginary perimeter around the child towards the bird.
"All you had to do was raise your wings for the camera!" he shouts frustrated but secretly pleased.
He chases the bird away so no one else catches the shot.
In his mind the child is dead.
He walks away but hesitates and glances back.
He decides the child is dead.