This blog is a collection of short stories about my vulture character Turk, based on In Forest events as well as his experiences before entering The Forest. Stories are posted oldest to newest, for new stories please scroll to the bottom of the blog.

Enlightenment

His world was the endless trail of the Hardflat. Be it under the scorching gold sun or the cool moon, the Hardflat went on forever. The vulture worshiped it, the eternal provider. With the Hardflat he was never hungry, he need never go without.

It was that time when the sun bent down and the moon woke to kiss the Hardflat, that magic time when it was day and night simultaneously. Drifting in lazy circles on the last thermal of the day, the vulture lets the keen sharp smell of death lure him down. As it always did, the desert highway had supplied him with a feast; the body of a doe and fawn.

Youth made the raptor impulsive, so he scrambles gracelessly across the ground towards the bodies. Rot has already set in but this does not perturb, maggots and flies are his well acquainted dinner guests. Something does perturb him though, and it scares him, rattles him. The moon comes up, but the sun is still here; laying twinkling in the dirt.

He looks at the sky, empty and cold. Back at the little glimmering sun, so much smaller up close. He hops closer, nudges it with his beak, picks it up…swallows. It tastes like dirt. Dirt and something else he has never tasted before, ambrosia that flows through him and brings a clarity and depth to him. He understands for the first time something deeper than instinct, he thinks.

He thinks maybe eating the piece of the sun was a bad idea.