The vultures – La Galerna

On the high of heaven, the place the air is thinner and the deepest silence, the vultures draw invisible circles with a persistence that appears ancestral. Don’t beat the wings with frenzy; They slide, suspended by thermal currents, as if the sky itself held them in a tacit pact. From that top, his eyes – affected as obsidian blades – scrutinize the earth with a precision that challenges the gap.

So one thing modifications. A slight tremor within the air, an imperceptible vibration for any creature that was not born for the carrion. A physique lies immobile among the many weeds, and though it has not but damaged down, that mute sign that solely scavengers know learn how to learn. The primary to understand it’s barely, as if the wind whispered a secret. Then one other imitates it. And one other. In a matter of minutes, the sky turns into a whirlwind of winged shadows that descend in a spiral, gradual however secure, as if the severity itself claimed them.

There are not any jubilation or chillidos of Victoria. Solely the friction of the air in opposition to the feathers, the crunch of branches when perched, the deaf sound of the claws when touching earth. The crows arrive later, extra daring, louder, like heralds of the inevitable. Las Caracas, family members of the indicators, with their haughty stroll, make their approach between the stays as noble in a dismal banquet. And the milans, opportunistic and quick, plan in decrease circles, ready for his or her second.

Every species is aware of its place on this macabre feast. There are not any chaos, however a tacit order, a choreography issued by starvation and hierarchy. The physique, nonetheless heat, turns into the middle of an ephemeral universe the place life feeds on demise, and demise, in flip, offers which means to the flight.

When the bones are bare and the pores and skin now not presents resistance, the vultures elevate the flight as soon as extra. They do not look again. Heaven claims them, they usually obey, returning to their everlasting vigil, to that silent merode that doesn’t know truce. As a result of down there, in some nook of the world, demise is all the time on the prowl. And so they, air scavengers, are their first witnesses.

And so it has been. The bandages of antimadridist scavengers, very quiet – and hidden in steep roquedos – because the 2025 Membership World Cup started, extra silent and passive as the times glided by and Actual Madrid raffled rivals and surpassed qualifiers, they’ve already appeared, precisely at 23 hours on Wednesday, July 9 of this 12 months.

All of the scavengers have been praying – if maybe a scavenger can dream – in order that this occurred as quickly as doable, they wanted to be primed as quickly as doable, since when mentioned dam enjoys good well being and of a robust nature, they don’t even dare to method it, given their baseness and cowardice.

They haven’t any extra, expensive readers, to go to the primary headwaters of our nation to ponder the feast which have been giving these despicable birds hours. And, if you’re one thing masochists, dare to pay attention solely to a couple moments of the assorted radio gatherings, consultants in passing bill to all the things that surrounds the membership that you just hate and hate essentially the most on this planet, however with out which their lives, and, or what to say, their gatherings, they might haven’t any which means.

When an distinctive being stumbles, the world doesn’t tremble … however sure souls do shudder. Not of grief, however of a darkish, intimate, nearly sacred delight. The mediocre and the envious ones – as they by no means knew learn how to fly however all the time seemed on the sky with resentment – they really feel at that second a sort of crooked redemption.

They now not must fake admiration. They have to now not bear the insufferable weight of international expertise, of the advantage that left them evidenced with out saying a phrase. The hero has fallen. And so they, who by no means dared to climb, have a good time from El Llano as if the highest belonged to them by proper.

They don’t do it with shouts or cheers. They do it with toxic whispers:

“I all the time knew that one thing hid.” “A lot brightness couldn’t be actual.” “It was a matter of time.”

They feed on the damage of others as scavenging birds of the corpse nonetheless heat of greatness. They don’t search justice, nor reality, or redemption. They search steadiness … however not the one born from advantage, however the one which arises when the excessive is demolished to its stage.

And at that second, transient and depressing, they lastly really feel superior. Not as a result of they’ve grown up, however as a result of they’ve seen the enormous shrink.

However what they don’t perceive – what they are going to by no means perceive – is that true heroes don’t die within the fall. They fall, sure. They break, generally. However, even from the bottom, its shadow stays larger than the stature of those that have a good time their misfortune.

Getty Photographs