BUZZARD GUILT

It wasn't until hours later that I remembered that I had forgotten to feed the turkey vulture. He just sat there, looking forlorn and feeling forgotten, in silent reproach. Because small birds aren't strong enought to lift a cast-iron skillet and fend for themselves in a kitchen.
Also, they don't have the leverage to open a refrigerator door.
Urban living doesn't suite them.


Dinner had been excellent. Chopped ginger and green chilies with mustard greens, ground chicken, and little mango pieces over rice, with some of the soy sauce chicken (豉油雞 'si yau gai') she had brought home recently for extra goodness. And two kinds of hot sauce.

Healthy, too. Ginger, chilies, mustard greens, and hot sauce are all vegetables.


But being kind of distracted, I had forgotten about Sydney Fylbert.

After a while I noticed him looking at me despondently.
With those big sad carrion eating eyes of his.
They followed me around the room.


Precisely like the Catholic Church and Jewish moms, they make you feel guilty. "You have disappointed me", they seem to say, "now I'll just sit here in the dark; you never visit, and your older brother is a doctor!" Also, if you had just listened to me, you could be Father O'Flaherty by now with your own parrish, but no! You're a failure.
At least your sister married a nice dentist.


Fortunately there were cookies.



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