By C Bryan Lavigne
The vultures are circling. They’ll go for the eyes first, the soft bits and the orifices. It will take them days to strip the corpse, up there on its rock platform.
These mountains were clear-cut when I was a boy. The dry, useless slash they left behind made a fire so big and hot it burned away the soil right down to the bedrock. All these decades later there still isn’t enough topsoil for trees to grow. We don’t even have enough wood for a cooking fire, let alone to honor our dead properly.
The first bird lands on my father.
This has a massive impact – thank you.
Visceral and thought-provoking. Well done!
Seems almost post-apocalyptic. Great last line brings it home!