IGNORE THE SOUND OF FRENZIED FEEDING!

When I came home it was to discover that my friend John in Georgia was entertaining the turkey vultures again. Another animal has croaked at the edge of his property. For turkey vultures, he's a godsend. His mere presence attracts dead things, they flock from all over. Zombie wild animals have chosen him as their messiah.
And the buzzards may feast!

Nothing is better than the warm friendship of happy turkey vultures.
He is profoundly blessed.
Truly.

Meanwhile, the turkey vulture sulking in my bedroom is wondering when some of the old cigar-huffing codgers I tend to every week are finally going to shuffle off.
He's hungry, dammit!

Isn't there a ledge I can shove them over?
He prays for their demise more than I do.
I can hear him grumbling from where I sit.

There aren't nearly enough turkey vultures in this city. According to a doom and gloom article today in the SF Chronicle, there are so many people expiring from overdoses of recreational substances here that it's practically a zombie apocalypse downtown. And yes, now that you mention it, I have seen the coroners van TWICE in the last twelve months. One of those times may have been for a recreational druggie on Van Ness. I didn't ask.

I have not mentioned this to Sydney Fylbert (the resident turkey vulture).

He'd demand to know why I had not carved off choice collops of fatty inner thigh for him.
And he scoffs at any mention that harvesting cuts of meat from human corpses might be against the law and get me in Dutch with the police.

No, I shan't explain to them that I am a Netherlander and that doing so is part of my colourful native folk religion. Which he avers it is, surely I know that, and I shall insist isn't, despite what you may have heard.

Any rumours you've heard of Americans disappearing in Amsterdam is purely hearsay.
They are just dawdling on the way back to the trainstation.
Drunk, or stoned.



Okay, so a few of them may have drowned in the canals while blotzed.
That's normal. They would have died when they got back anyway.
And they were probably from Pittsburg, so no great loss.


There are no turkey vultures in the Netherlands.
We have other way of disposing of corpses.
And coincidences are perfectly normal.



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