Vulture Culture
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The Ords (who had shortened their name from Ordure) were odd ducks. Well, they weren’t really ducks, but they were damned peculiar. They worked for Lord Ord who was the Cosmic Keeper of the Odd, the Angels Too Fat To Dance on the Point of A Pin. His emblem was, proudly, a turkey buzzard in pink, rampant on a magenta field — the colors of entrails as the Lesser Ords scoffed cheerfully. Vultures liked guts and gluck; rot was ripe to them. Suppuration was succulent. The more stinking the ooze, the more toothsome.
Lord Ord had begun liking what the other Planet Designers liked. Babbling brooks. Roses, orchids, panthers, and emeralds. Smashing glorious snazzy gorgeous show-stoppers. But to have all the living things work, there was an engineering Unavoidable. Living things were lively, but in some span they ran down, wore out, fatigued. Their élan waned. Death was invented; despised, but required.
Lord Ord became, reluctantly at first then ravenously, rapturously interested in the Behind-the-Scenes necessities that support the splendid on-stage Show. When he had invented the vulture, he had felt a deep marrow-tingling pride. There are many quirks in the solid Earth dimension. There were surprises such as the glamorous peacock’s awful cry. Lord Ord’s ugly vulture of ghastly mien could soar so sweetly that all gaped, envied. It was sufficient recompense.
When the gods wished to soar, they became vultures, effortless, cloudstalkers. Hot sun on the top of the bold broad feathers, the rise of the ebullient air under your wide wings. If you wanted to do enormous, you did elephant, hippo, rhino, whale. If you wanted to soar, you did vulture.
Some gods were too fastidious, too tepid of imagination to pay the gustatory price. Lord Ord’s sense of humor escaped many. Putting the galaxy’s most fabulous soaring with the galaxy’s most repulsive and rancid cuisine was a mobius twist trick that the prissier gods couldn’t follow.
Lady Onyx, his brilliant deft partner, had also become intrigued by the design of the Odd. Her tour de force had been spiders. The challenge had been to devise a vertigo-less creature whose webs were art and worked as well.
Lady Onyx remembered fondly the morning when she and Lord Ord woke and she watched him gaze happily around the bustling planet which was getting quite habitable by now. He glanced up at the corner of their large sunny room and he was silent. He watched the patient tiny predator on its remarkable silvery web, the first spider seen by any other god than its designer. He shook his head in delight and applauded, “Wonderful, my dear Lady Onyx.” He leapt up to peek more closely at this new ingenious tiny toy.
Lord Ord and Lady Onyx had collaborated on the crocodile. Lord Ord had devised the massive musculature, the crushing jaws, whittled the interlocking teeth. Lady Onyx had devised the turreted hide.
The Lesser Ords were devoted to their Patrons. Once you got a feel for the Onyx and Ord touch, you could always pick out their practical, clever solutions. There was pride in dealing with ordure, preventing the spread of pestilence.
Much later after the planet’s bio-layer matured, Lord Ord and Lady Onyx were saddened to hear that their favorite, the majestic vultures, were no longer fed the felled biped. Strange religions had proliferated. The quarrelsome biped was the only creature which hid its dead in boxes. Few remembered that the path of the vulture was the only way to completely free the soul from its planet-bound bonds.
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I would copyright that title, Pogblog! Your choice of words is intriguing. ORDURE 's parentage is Latin Horridus, which makes me wonder about our ancestors' early experiences with sanitation. But ORD is a forgotten ancestral word meaning A Pointed Weapon or a Spear which somehow fits well to the anti-hero of your parable.
I believe that Tibetans used to recycle bipeds past their shelf-life by exposing them on mountain tops. Wood is very scarce in those parts of the world. Not sure if under Chinese occupation they are still allowed to do that I wonder what happened to Delay Lama? 😉
nicodemus
I think the Dali Lama visited the US fairly recently, but don't even know what his status is re: living in Tibet.
Is a Delay Lama something you get when you can't decide which ethics violation to prosecute first?
Mr. Pogblog,
I may have to skip your funeral on that distant day when it's necessary , should I be alive then. I'll go to a cremation but I don't think I'd want to watch a bunch of vultures help recycle your remains.