The Snoring Vulture

The sky was dark. Well, that would be considered usual sometimes and unusual at others. This was one of the usual times. It was night, a cloudy night. Hence, it was dark and there was nothing unusual about it. The whole city was quiet. This wasn’t unusual either. This was because there was no one in the city to make any noise. Of course, I’m not considering any spiritual entities when I say this, but there was no living-human-being-in-the-dimension-that-we-know. But that wasn’t unusual. Why should it be unusual that a city that was usually so crowded was completely empty? Well, it just wasn’t unusual and you just have to take my word for it, assuming that you ever know what my "word" is.

The clouds covered the entire night-sky and deprived the earth of all the light that the stars and the moon had to offer. It was beside the point that everyone was asleep when the stars and the moon gave the earth their light, so no one noticed anyway. Instead people spoke about the beautiful light that the stars and the moon provided but no one ever looked at the sun. I’m sure that if you stood five feet away from the sun and from any other star in the universe, you would be blinded (or burned to a crisp) in a millionth of a second. Of course, you would be burned before you could get within 2000 feet of either the sun or any star.

In the empty city, there was a bird. It was a grand old bird. A bird so grand, it was considered to be the most grand and graceful bird on the planet by the vulture society of earth. The bird was … a vulture. Of course you won’t expect the vulture society of earth to say that the eagle was more grand and graceful than a vulture. And this grand vulture was perched on a streetlight, snoring. If you have never heard a vulture snore, you don’t want to hear this vulture snore. If you do want to hear this vulture snore, however, you can always go to the nearest desert, lie on the ground as if you are dead and watch the vultures come in from all directions to pick at your rotting corpse. And then you could surprise the vultures by getting up before they all came and picked at you, even though you were still alive. You would never hear a vulture snore, but those would be the most anxious moments of your life, which you wouldn’t forget as long as you lived (and you wouldn’t live too long in that situation).

The snoring vulture was … snoring. I think I mentioned that but this is crucial to the story. It is imperative that you understand that the snoring vulture was snoring and not eating a piece of bread that it had found on the road or flying over the Pacific Ocean in search of a desert. The snoring vulture may have been sleeping, but, more importantly, it was snoring. I can’t say this enough times, but if I went on then you would be a million years old by the time I finished and this story would never end and you would never read it, so you would actually end up living your life.

The snoring vulture snored on for a long time. It snored for hours at end. And it was dark for hours at end. And then it rained.

 

Rain is an amazing thing. When you look at it, you see water falling. And if you stay out and watch the water falling long enough, you realise something really profound … you are wet. Amazing, isn’t it? Well the snoring vulture was outside, with nothing between it and the sky, and it was raining. Hence, I deduce … that the powers of deduction that I have developed over my long life span were wetting the vulture or that the vulture was getting wet because of the rain. Interesting, isn’t it?

Well, if you were that vulture and you were snoring (and probably sleeping) and then got wet, what would you do? If you were a sane (or insane) individual with a fairly good reflex system, you would dream that you were getting wet somehow or the other and would wake up. Of course, it is very possible that you would just wake up without dreaming anything. Or even not wake up at all. Thankfully, though, I am not the least bothered what you would do, but am bothered about when I will get to eat an apple pie. But this story concerns a snoring vulture and I must return to that boring vulture.

Well, the vulture stopped snoring. That was the good news. The bad news was that the vulture stopped snoring. I hope this makes sense, because it isn’t supposed to. It has as much value as a $1 million check to you. Now unless you’re Bill Gates, the Sultan of Brunei, or the relative of an arms dealer, that check would mean a lot to you.

So now you know the good news and the bad news. And you probably know that you are reading a strange story, which is documenting the reason for your insanity. Of course, if you are not insane (which is highly unlikely) the easiest way to become insane is to either solve a physics equation or watch a Jerry Springer show. So if you are immune to one technique, the other will drive you to insanity. And when you do become insane you can email me and tell me that you are insane because you would have to be insane to know my email address.

The vulture stopped snoring but remained where it was. It didn’t move an inch. In fact, it didn’t move a mile either. It just stayed where it was and moved nothing. And was moved by nothing. Hence, the grand picture of the vulture on a streetlight in the middle of an empty city at night, remained. The only difference now was that the vulture wasn’t snoring. So you could actually go near the vulture now and wouldn’t be tortured by the power of sound.

Of course, if you went near the vulture, then its sheer ugliness would drive you away. But then you can’t show that disgust, otherwise you would be declared to be a "specist" if there were any people around. Of course, there weren’t any people around, so you could openly make a show of your utter disgust at the ugliness of the "grand" bird.

The sky was still very dark. The clouds hadn’t yet let any starlight or moonlight touch the earth. It was so dark that if you closed your eyes, you would see brighter surroundings. It was so dark that if there was anyone around, they would have stumbled around trying to look for the light switch. But since there was no one around, no one stumbled in the dark and the hospitals were empty. However, the hospitals were empty in the first place because there was no one around.

The snoring vulture, which wasn’t snoring anymore, was still not-snoring. It remained where it was, perched upon the streetlight. It remained there as a symbol to show that all of nature wasn’t really beautiful and that nature looked really ugly when it woke up in the morning, before it put on any "make-up". Not that anyone was around to notice or that anyone ever noticed, but no one really cared, because no one noticed in the first place.

 

After a while, things started getting really boring again. The sky was still as dark as it was. The vulture was still not-snoring. And the city was still empty. Everything was normal. That was about when a great light suddenly flashed across the sky. The light was so bright, that if anyone was around, they would have been too blinded to see it. And the light lasted for such a short time that no one would have noticed anyway. And then everything returned to "normal".

But one thing had changed after the flash of light. The vulture was perched on the streetlight no more. Now it was hanging from the streetlight like a bat. It stayed in that position for quite some time, 2 seconds to be precise. And then it fell to the earth. Gravity made the vulture suffer since there was no one else around to suffer.

And now finally something comprehensive had happened. The vulture had fallen to the ground and was now "awake". This, of course, depends on your perspective of the situation. If you have ever seen a vulture "awake", you will know if the vulture was "awake" or not. And even if you haven’t, then you shouldn’t really bother, unless you are a vulture. And that I doubt because if there was a vulture which could read this, it would have already sued me for a million cents because dollars are senseless to vultures, which have as much sense as one cent coins.

The vulture arranged its feathers to its original messed up state. And then the vulture looked up. It could see … nothing. It was too dark to see anything and vultures couldn’t study their surroundings using radar. They couldn’t even use their brains let alone use any radar devices. So this vulture concluded that if it flew straight up, then it would not be flying downwards. It was a great step in intelligence for all of "vulture-kind" and there was no vulture around which cared. All the other vultures were out in some desert waiting for some idiot to come and hear them snore.

So the vulture immediately started flying upwards. And then it stopped. It hit the streetlight on its journey upwards and then stopped in mid-air. It kept its position for a few minutes, after which gravity, which was taking a coffee break, came back and went back to work by pulling the vulture down to the ground again. The vulture was actually relieved to have its head hit against the cold hard ground rather than hang in mid-air. This was because of the lack of intelligence in that vulture in particular. Hence, there was no brain damage because no brain was there.

The vulture got up again and messed up its feathers again. It hated it when its feathers got tidied up whenever it fell down and hit the ground. It looked up again. Once again, it concluded that if it flew straight up, then it would not be flying downwards. And then it added the thought that if it flew straight up, then it would hit the streetlight and fall back to the ground. So it flew straight up again, hit the streetlight again and fell to the ground again.

It repeated this procedure a few times until it made a mistake while falling on one occasion and fell away from the streetlight and was no longer beneath it. So, unknown to the vulture, it flew straight up again, expecting to stop in mid-air, and stopped in mid-air again. This wasn’t because it hit the streetlight again, but because it was tired. It hadn’t travelled this far in a long time. After a minute, it began flying up again. It continued flying upwards until it stopped in the sky, looked around in the dark and then flew off in one direction.

The sky was still very dark. No one could see anything. This was partly because it was dark and partly because there was no one around. Hence, no one saw the vulture gracefully glide through the sky. It used the air as a slide and rode the slide with sheer perfection. However, this only happened when it wasn’t hitting any tall skyscrapers, which was every other second.

So the graceful vulture made its way through the empty city. However, it remained dark for hours at end. There was no sign of any reprieve from the clouds, which were still determined to deny the world of all light. It seemed as if the night would never end. But things were never like they seemed … with the possible exception of the current situation.

After a long time, the vulture had finally carved its path out of the city. And then it stopped in mid-air, forgot about gravity and fell to the ground. It was quite high in the air and so it fell in the air for a long time, at the end of which, it hit the earth with a loud thud!

 

The vulture got up after some time. The problem was that the world was as dark (if not darker) when the vulture closed its eyes. It wasn’t even sure if it had opened its eyes or not. It tried to open its eyes as much as it could but couldn’t notice any difference. Finally, after spending a lot of time, the vulture decided to fly around with its eyes closed, because it thought that was the brightest place to be looking.

Well, that turned out to be a stupid decision. The reason was that the vulture was stupid in the first place, which meant that any decision it made was stupid including that decision it made all that time ago, to become the pope. It never became the pope and ended up proving to the whole world (at least the world of vultures) that it was stupid. Hence, all decisions made by this vulture were stupid. And it had just made another stupid decision. And no one was bothered, because there was no one around. Of course, if there was anyone around, I wouldn’t be writing about this stupid vulture.

The vulture started walking about in the complete darkness, with its eyes closed. It had had a bad experience trying to fly through the city and it didn’t want to suffer anymore. Well, this was a stupid decision. In the city, there were tall buildings everywhere to crash into. Outside the city, where the vulture was now, there were no buildings, so it could fly without bumping into anything. But, then again, outside the city, there were plenty of trees, which the vulture ended up hitting. Thud! Crash! Bump! And so the sounds went on. If there was anyone around they would have noticed that an expletive was uttered, but no one was around and if there was anyone, they wouldn’t be watching the vulture.

The vulture makes you wonder what level of intelligence the creator of the universe had in mind when he created the vulture. If any philosopher ever attempted to answer that question, the philosopher would come to the conclusion that the creator of the universe had no intelligence left to distribute when he created vultures and Jerry Springer.

 

Just about then, while the vulture was bumping into the trees, the darkness disappeared. There still wasn’t any light, but it certainly wasn’t dark anymore. And the vulture continued to bump into the trees, because its eyes were closed. And then, the dark reappeared, but it wasn’t dark. There was finally some light, although the dark has just reappeared. But the vulture had no idea because its eyes were still closed and it was too busy bumping into the trees and muttering expletives.

And finally, the sun appeared. It was dark no more and there was finally some light. But the vulture didn’t know that. It wasn’t because its eyes were closed, but because it was in the "dark" shade of a very large … microbe. This shadow was extremely large. It looked as if the microbe was larger than Mount Everest. However, there was no microbe around, just an extremely large shadow of a microbe. And then, the vulture disappeared.

 

No one knew where the vulture went. That was partly because no one was the least bothered where the vulture had gone. And it was partly because the vulture just disappeared. It had left the shadow of the microbe, the city and the whole universe. No reason was ever given for the strange events that were detailed in this story. In fact the very universe in which the vulture was, … disappeared.

The universe disappeared after a very loud sound that sounded like a voice. And yet more interestingly, the voice was in English. It sounded like it said "God junior! If you are playing with the universe creating machine, you’ll get yourself a good spanking!"