Morgan the Vulture - A Fairy tale in many, many parts

Once upon a time there was a vulture called Morgan - and a very happy vulture he was. You see, Morgan used to spend all his time gliding over the plains looking for dead bodies. Oh how he loved those dead bodies! He even loved the not-quite-so-dead bodies, not to mention the weak and the vulnerable ones. In fact he basically loved easy meat, did Morgan. Which meant, any meat he could lay his beak on with the minimum of effort

What a wonderful life it was! Morgan loved nothing more than to survey the plain in the early evening when the sun was going down. This was a good time to find a dehydrating gazelle, exhausted and soon to expire. And as soon as the animal began twitching and its expression went vacant, he'd swoop down and fill his fat, greedy, bloated guts with the tainted flesh of the dying creature.

Sweet! No exertion involved, no complications. He often thought how stupid the King of the Beasts was. He knew that lions, just like all the other big cats, had to go through much labour to fill their proud tummies. They had to expend so much effort, so much industry. Whereas Morgan simply dealt with the remains. And what rich pickings those remains provided.

But one day Morgan noticed that many of his fellow vultures were becoming sick and weak. The first stage, he noticed, was coughing and spluttering. Then the vultures lost the ability to take off and fly. Then they started vomiting and going very, very, deathly pale.

Morgan thought there must be some really dodgy flesh knocking about the plain. Because, boys and girls, some flesh is too purulent, too rotten, too toxic even for vultures. And so it came to pass that the other vultures started dropping like flies - like very big fucking flies, I'll warrant you.

But Morgan was okey-dokey. You see, he was a wily old bird and he avoided the really stinking, oozing, festering flesh. He stayed fit and well fed. And he carried on much as he had before.

But there's something else you should know about Morgan: he was also a very imaginitive, a very creative birdie. And he hit upon an idea: There was so much vulture meat now knocking around on account of the plague and what-not, that he thought "I could do a nice little sideline in flogging it, I could."

And so he went about the plain and said to the lions and the tigers and the panthers and the cheetahs and the leopards and the crocodiles and the hyenas and the... anyway, you get the message... He said to them, "Hey, dude, wanna know the deal? Even a vulture can provide you a meal."

And you know what? All these majestic animals, even the big, cool cats, they all said yes, because times were tough on the plain what with global warming and the fucked up balance of the ecosystem and they went and bought every ounce of vulture meat that Morgan had.

Boy-o-boy-o-boy-o-boy! What a nice little earner this was for the wily vulture. He was making a mint (which was not what his vulture flesh smelt like, I can tell you). But times were good for him all of a sudden. And who would have thought it after all that nasty old vulture pestilence that had occurred so recently.

And none of the animals knew what he was getting up to and how he was getting so rich.They just could not see how it was possible when the economy of the plain was so totally fucked up and chaotic and twisted and when even the King of the Beasts was having a really shit time.

But, in chapter two, boys and girls, we'll find out what happened next to Morgan and his vulture way of life, and how it was that all the other animals turned a blind eye to everything that Morgan did.

(to be continued...)