the runt of the litter

They made their harsh sound as they circled above. One dove down. The others left. It wasn’t worth it. The one that flew down was the runt of the litter. Its decision was based on two things. First, food was food. Second, it didn’t have the foresight or the intelligence to see that all food was not the same. Food as small as this was barely a snack. Its eyes were mean and beady. Its head was crooked. It landed atop a stone by the animal. Back hunched. Crooked. Wings folding in on themselves. There was a pool of blood around its head, gleaming crimson in the light of the dying sun. It crooked its head. There were some ants scuttling to and from the animal. The stone it was perched on was cracked but solid. The bird lay long dead. The blood was fresh. So maybe this morning? There was a shrieking from far away. Near the forest he had flown over, maybe? Those little wings, impossibly bent, covered around the body, the head in a direction that was not natural. A side of it caved in. Blood no longer pooled out. But he could imagine that was where it had come from. The poor baby. He closed his eyes for a few seconds. And then he leapt. Without warning. The gust made by his wings made some ants fly back. He began with poking a hole in the baby bird. First, he ate the juicy entrails that he scavenged from it. Soft. Moist. The liquid in them was divine. Then he started to chew on the wings. Crunchy. Crispy. Flavorful. So much texture. The shrieking continued. It seemed to become more heart wrenching. As if it were pronged by his consuming of this dead baby bird. A sound from nearby, and with one last peck at the body, he took off, circling in the sky. It was just a pebble scuttling down from the mountain. It flew back down, circling as it dove and then pulled out it’s wings to soften the landing. It landed right by the bird, one claw touching the blood that had been sitting there, still, but now ripples flew across the surface of that calm liquid. What he saw now was a wingless bird with a stomach that was slowly deflating due to the absence of guts and intestines. He had had too many soft pieces. He went for the feet. With a single swipe, he cut them off. They were in his curved beak. Munch. Munch. Munch. A torso and a head. It turned its own head and looked at that smaller head. Not yet. Tongue watered though. One talon on the head, as it ripped the torso away and chewed on it. The shrieking became more insistent and then fell away. He looked around him, and stopped eating. The silence was just as bad as too much noise. Silence meant something was about to pounce. The forest was never silent. Nature was never silent. Not even in the darkness of the night. He continued to eat. Then last was the delicate, tasty morsel of head.