Vultures
M.

The sun is beating down on me too hard. That’s the only thing I can think at this point, my friend. Thoughts are too liquid to grasp onto, almost like the crimson waves I tried to stop when you were shot. Too bad I can’t stop my thoughts like I did the blood.

I had shot you by accident. It really wasn’t my true intention. You were there when I was having a hissy fit. Simple as that. Even as I lifted the gun and pulled the trigger I could tell I wasn’t trying to kill you. I was in a dream like state. When I reach for my gun to kill, movements are quick and decisive. Sharp, smooth; like a Saving Private Ryan movie . Or something.

I wasn’t trying to kill you. You were just in the way.

I thought I only saw the vultures in my mind. Pecking away at my thoughts and soul as I lived in that which I call Home. I thought they existed only in my morbid fantasy world; my macabre visions and perverted longings. No, they are very real.

They’re picking at your face.

I flare my nose and pick up the stench of rotting flesh. How disgusting. I lift the cloth to my face, blocking the green aroma of your corpse, inhaling the sharp blue tinge…

…Blue is the official color of death...Blue is the official color of death...of embalming fluid as I push back my reflexive gag. What the hell was I doing with Cox’s handkerchief?

No matter.

I watch the vulture’s pick away at the flesh of your cheek bones, the deep holes of your left cheek already gone. What a sight. You, my mentor, my father, my friend, lying in the Arizona desert, your hollow red eyes staring at the screaming sun.

Why did you run away, Sydney? Why did you snap, as brittle as a toothpick, and disappear from our--- my life? You know I didn’t give a shit about anyone else but you. Maybe Broots.

He’s shooing the buzzards away from you. Their red, bald heads are still bobbing at your fried skin. He trying to scare them away. Doesn’t matter. They’ll always be there.

I’m finally noticing the tears streaming down my face. They’re coming in loud and clear. Running clear streaks on my dust ridden face. You’ve let me down, Syd. I was expecting something more graceful from you. Something more commemorative. I don’t know.

But I didn’t expect to be led here after three days of no sleep and police reports, bad hotel service and stomach pains, just to be brought out in the scorching heat and shown your body being hacked at by some overgrown parakeets.

They say you died of heat exhaustion. Drove your car into the desert, walking when it broke down, taking nothing in the form of nourishment. Stumbling in a sunken euphoria until you fell upon your knees to embrace your sandy death with your lips.

Oh, Sydney. Why did you leave me? I’m alone now. Jarod hasn’t called in months. He’s probably decided to disappear. All the better. That way he can get away from me. Lord knows how I screw people up. Broots will most likely leave me after this. The relationship will be too rocky… to spatial. Too far gone.

I’m still crying as they carry your body away. Blue is the official color of death; I repeat my mantra again. Not like it helps. Just simple recognition. I nod dreamily. Blue is the official color of death. One of the Cleaners trips and you fall to the ground, people shouting. Half your body is over the side of the stretcher. But it’s not really you, is it?

It’s just an empty shell. Like some discarded bullet. Making a huge impact: leaving nothing but thin lining.

Lyle’s trying to talk to me.

You once asked me what I regret, Syd.

"I regret not going to the prom. I regret laughing at my firs boyfriend when he told me I was the one. And at this moment I regret not having a nicotine patch the size of a doormat."

I regret not loving you.

You were there for me always, Syd. And I never acknowledged it. I look up at the sun. It blinds me. I shield my eyes, faintly seeing over the horizon the haunting silhouette of a vulture.

What do you do when you can’t cry anymore, Syd? What do you do when the tears keep coming and you want them to stop? The vulture flies closer.

And from the back of my mind I hear your voice rise up over the static of the bustling around me, telling me my answers. What my solution is.

The buzzard lands in front of me. I begin to laugh.