The Vultures

ONE

Only idiots are happy, because only idiots settle.

In my life, I've been lots of things, few of them worth telling, but I've never been an idiot. I've never been happy either. You win some, you lose some.

Few would call me "successful", a lot would call me "passive", but no one would dare call me ordinary. I want to be that someone who will always be remembered.

However, and despite everything else, the one thing I've been above all others is ambitious. To me, ambition is everything.

It's desire, rabid and ardent and consuming and maddening. It's what's given me everything I have now, few as it may be, but, most importantly, it's what will give me everything I long for.

It's the reason I wake up every morning, why I work every day and why I can't sleep at night. It's what's turned my dreams into realities, and then into polyester-wrapped nightmares. It's what gives me unfulfillable desires, cruel and incessant, a stone-cold monument to all the failures I've suffered and that remain by my side, unbreakable and constant.

I want more. Much more.

I want all. I really do.

And what a waste. So many ideas, trapped in a prison of which they cannot break free, tired of waiting, fed up with the silence that's holding them back. They fly in my mind and hate me for my mediocrity, cursing the head they fell into. But they don't stop talking, they don't leave, and they don't stop. They stay, waiting for their moment, one that's yet to come.

One that's yet to come.

Ambition is what I lack. It's never enough and I don't want it to be. I'm terrified of settling. Nothing scares me more than failure. The many are failures, the few are successful, and the world is filled with the many trying to be the few. There's nothing more common than failure, and there's nothing worse than being common. Common is boring. My solace is ambition, it's what fills me up and what I'm missing, all at the same time.

Ambition is what makes me see them.

I see them in every place.

I see them in every shadow, in every corner and always.

I see them above me, furrowing the skies at cloud rhythm, and I see them in front of me, wearing suits and ties and white smiles that hide black lies. And every time I see them closer, and every time I get more and more used to them.

Vultures.

Big, noisy, cruel and terrifying vultures, starving, desperate, anxious and wild. Some are covered in bloody feathers, others are covered in Chanel, and they all come at the smell of blood, but only some dare to try it. I used to fear them, I respected them. Now, right now, I am the one that's pouring the blood and I'm daring them to come near, I defy them to even try.

They used to do it. Now, will they?

My name is Alejandro Láster, but everyone calls me Alec. My parents were born, got married and had me back in Mexico, and we came to the United States when I was five. They died when I was ten and I was legally adopted by my mother's aunt, who now I only seldomly see. The intention is there, I suppose, but it's getting weaker, and I now she feels the same way. We never really got along, we never really tried. I was always an imposition to her. But she, at least, held up her end of the bargain.

Mine is still to come.

Who am I? I'm a writer, or at least I try to be. I'm as much of a writer as I can be without a reader to read me. I'm half a writer, just like I'm half a man, because I will not be complete until I'm the vulture that feasts on the largest carcass. The largest of them all.

I'm a writer, of course, and I work for a medium-sized newspaper, read by sickly old men and bored housewives, and that barely keeps its scrawny staff. It's been years since we published something of relevance, much less a scoop. My editor, Jonas Kirke, lost his drive years ago, and, slowly but surely, every member of his depressed and depressing staff followed. It's easier to find life in a nursing home than on that paper. But it's something.

It's something.

Of course, I tried with the big ones. Straight out of college, I knocked on all the important doors and none of them answered. Maybe I gave up too soon, or maybe I simply didn't have that which they call "talent".

It's been four years since.

Now, everything can be different. The most unexpected of allies has reached out.

Faith has knocked on my door and has offered a helping hand; it's dirty and dripping blood, it's the hand that few dare to take for too many reasons that I'm well aware of, but that I refuse to listen, it's the treacherous hand, almost invisible under the heavy layers of accumulated blood that cover it, the one that takes advantage of the naïve and feeds on the weak, the one that crushes and leaves no trace...but it's something.

It's something.

Now, with this hand in front of me, and with a future ahead and nothing behind, my hand is willing to reach out and cover in blood and tears, and all I need is a glove to protect it.

And that glove is about to come in.

The woman that's crossing the door is beautiful and mature, and her raven hair shines almost as much as her eyes when they find mine, while a twisted smile draws on her face. It's the unmistakable smile of someone who's about to fuck somebody else's life.

"Did you do it?" I ask anxiously, knowing the answer before she even has to open her mouth. That smile doesn't lie.

"I did," she claims triumphantly, with a delicious tone poisoning her words. "And he bought it all. Every word."

"Then we better do this," I say, turning to face the computer screen that shows the story that's patiently waiting to be set free.

"You better do it," she corrects me, but I'm not really listening.

I've pressed Enter and the world has changed.

Now I no longer see the monitor, or the woman, or the exciting and vengeful city that stands behind me, and that's screaming for a new star to rise.

No, I no longer see any of that.

Now I only see vultures.

Vultures all around me, flying over me, celebrating and preparing to attack. They smell the freshly poured blood, and they see the pray, vulnerable and weak.

Countless vultures.

Vultures all around.

And now, for the first time ever, there's no vulture larger than I.

And this vulture is about to take flight.