Vulture

by Peter Miller

Aha. Blackshaw. I see you’re awake. Weird feeling isn’t it? Well, you’ll get used to it. Ooh, no, don’t panic. It won’t do you any good. Your heart rate will just go up and with your blood pressure the way it is you might have a stroke or something. Couldn’t have that, not now, no. Not now after we’ve come this far.

I figure you’re pretty comfortable. As comfortable as you can be anyway. It’s a very complete paralysis. Toxin from a stick-insect that’s found only in one particular forest in Western Borneo. Rimba-hantu they call it there. Forest ghost. Not an easy thing to come by. And it wasn’t cheap either, but what the hell, it’s only money, right?

See, the main thing is that it doesn’t affect your heart or your breathing. Just your motor functions. Your arms and legs and so forth.

Oh, and it doesn’t stop you from feeling pain.

I tried it, you know, to see what it was like. Just the tiniest smear with a toothpick, on a piece of apple. I made sure I was lying comfortably on my bed of course. Thirty hours of complete immobilisation. I made a little contraption with a needle on a spring attached to a timer that jabbed me in the hand after about an hour. I felt it alright, and you know what? I couldn’t do anything about it. That needle jabbed me in the hand every hour on the hour and it was just as painful every time. Thirty jabs. I can’t decide which was worse, the pain from the needle or the last few minutes before the hour struck. The anticipation of pain.

It occurred to me, during those thirty long hours, that it was something like standing in a bank queue, appropriately enough. The interminable waiting, waiting, waiting. Then the excruciating anticipation as some weedy little nerd exerts the only power he has in his entire life by fiddling for an unnecessary thirty seconds before he finally looks up.

“Next!”

And then that singular and particular species of pain that necessarily follows, when you find out again how little money you’ve got left in your account. But I suppose that’s probably not something you ever experienced.

Do you recognize this road? Ah, no, I guess not. I know it like the back of my hand. It’s where my farm used to be. I drove this road every week for thirty years to go into town to get supplies.

Oh. I see you remember me now. Yes, I’d be worried too if I was you. No telling what a desperate man like myself might do. Well, it’s probably a little late to be concerned now, Blackshaw. You can’t do anything at all about it. Look at it this way, I’m doing you a really big favour. You won’t need to feel concerned about anyone ever again. That is, assuming you ever did before.

I don’t recall that you even asked me what it was that I farmed, did you? It was sheep originally. Of course, they all died, when the money ran out and the effects of the drought finally caught up. It’s not what I wanted. I really liked farming the sheep, and it broke my heart to see them all dying. Hunger first, when the feed ran out, but it’s the thirst that killed them.

I don’t suppose you’ve ever seen a sheep die of thirst. It doesn’t take too long out here, with the sun beating down and no trees left for shade. They go a bit crazy, stagger about some, and then just lie down and die.

I sat here and watched them die, every last one of them. The sun dried them out and they just gave up. Every day I came out here and sat in the truck and just watched them.

You’d sold the farm out from under me by then, you and your lackeys. I bet you didn’t even notice there was a drought, back there in the city in your big plush room with your full water cooler and the air-conditioning turned way up.

But I came out here every day anyway and sat in the truck and waited, and waited and watched. That kind of watching leads to a particular kind of thinking. And that particular kind of thinking leads to particular kind of planning.

So, it came to me that even if I didn’t actually have the land as such, I could still raise some stock. It all came down to logistics. I didn’t have any land, didn’t have any water, didn’t have much money and didn’t have any feed. Well unless you count hundreds of dead sheep. I had plenty of dead sheep.

You know, some people think that if you interfere with nature it’s a bad thing. The way I look at it is that you can’t really interfere with nature, because anything you do is really a part of nature. Everyone says that those chaps who bought in the cane toad made a bit of blunder, but when you think about it, the cane toad is pretty happy with the result. Cane toads can’t help it if they just happen to be remarkably well adapted and eat everything in sight and breed fast. Nature doesn’t care what you do, nature just makes the best of it.

So with the rest of my money, which wasn’t much now, I got my new stock in. Totally illegal, no denying it, but very satisfying to finally have something thriving on my place. Even if it wasn’t technically my place.

Oops. Sorry about the bumping, the road’s a bit rocky just here. It’s the old river bed. Used to be full up to the where those tree stumps are, before UE built the dam. Oh, that’s right, your bank was the underwriter for that, how careless of me to forget. You’d know all about how the land downriver of the power station gets only a trickle of the water it once had. Nothing at all in the drought, in fact. Got to keep that big reservoir full so all those air conditioners in the city can keep on running. Wouldn’t want anyone to sweat while they were at work, would we?

Ever thought much about evil, Blackshaw? Time was when I thought evil was some kind of devil with horns on his head and a pitchfork in his hand. But now I know evil’s not like that. Evil doesn’t jump out with a “Boo!” and a thunderclap and flash of lightning. That would be way too conspicuous. Evil is much more subtle. It seeps into things like kerosene into a wick. There’s a lot more evil in the world than you think, because it’s seeped into everything so completely that no-one can tell anymore.

I always knew you were evil, that seemed obvious, the way you hovered around for those last five years and waited for the land to dry up, and for me to go broke and rot in the sun.

But you know what? After a while I came to think that I might be evil too. Maybe just a little bit evil, at first, but like I say, evil seeps in and once I knew it was there, I started not to care anymore. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.

After I bought the poison, everything else just kind of fell into place. Oh, I can see that you’re trying to remember what happened. It was the red wine you had at lunch. Sleeping pills. I told the waiter that you were my brother and he let me help you out to the truck. Then when we were on our way, a little bit of the rimba-hantu potion on your tongue and the rest you know.

Ah, here we are. I know it doesn’t look like much. It was a lot prettier with grass on the hills and a full dam and live sheep instead of skeletons. Never mind, that’s all in the past. This suits the new stock just fine.

Here, let’s just get you out of the car. Hot isn’t it? Same as last year. And the year before. Would you like some water? Yes, I bet you would. But that would be a waste, and out here we try not to waste water.

No point in wearing that hot jacket, or the tie, so we’ll get those off. And the shirt will just get in the way so let’s rip those buttons off too.

Now this will be a bit smelly, but I promise you that you’ll forget all about that pretty quickly. It’s just some sheep’s blood from the butcher. It cost me two dollars. Literally my last two dollars. I’m sure the irony won’t be lost on you.

You see all those black spots circling away up there? They’ll get much closer soon enough. It’s an interesting fact that the turkey vulture is alone among all birds in having a very fine sense of smell. They’re a magnificent animal, as I have no doubt you will appreciate in due course. Superbly adapted. They’ve learnt to make the best of a bad situation.

While you’re lying there, you might like to reflect on what it’s like to stand in a bank queue.

I’ll just be over here in the truck.

Watching.