27) There is much to be learned from the birds. They do not weep, to begin with. They need no cheering up. They know North when born. They eat their bugs alive. They have no conscience. My deficit was all of the above. This morning's hunt had failed and had estranged me from hunger. So it was that I had only to resume my journey North when the birds, surely the freest, even if only among short lived things, came to my rescue. A first bird hovered above a water and dove in to catch a tiny fish. Other birds came out of the shrubs to steal the fish from the first. One bird after another had it for a moment. Some get nothing, of course, but in bits was the tiny fish torn, scattered, and consumed. Now, the bird which had caught the fish left the conjugating mayhem at the start. It went back to fishing, truly as a solitary hunter. It caught a second fish, larger than the first. And now it is beak deep in flopping, warm entrails.
My happiness is that I need only to find my place in this procession. The natural world of the animal gives blunt clues to a more elegant ratio of violence to meal. I can learn. My broken lad in the cave will be set upon by smaller beasts. They will pick and choose amongst themselves who gets what. All will eat. Flesh will scatter. Others will come to take the pieces lost behind rocks or pasted to the cave's walls. Beetles will emerge from the dirt to partake. Lastly, the lowest of the low will move in on a nod and a wink.
I feel better. My atrocity finds a natural wheel. I am like the first bird. Always.
I toss the handful of beetles away. I am hungry again.