Feeding the Vultures

Feeding the Vultures
I can still remember everything, every vivid detail.
The bitter sting of the icy winter’s day against my skin. The nausea and gut-wrenching fear that made my heart throb like a war drum. The cold, emotionless stare from my opponent’s eyes, piercing rays that seemed to stare straight through my soul. But most of all, I remember the chanting. The chanting, loud and rhythmic, that came from all sides, all directions at once. The chanting that stemmed from the crowd of bloodthirsty vultures that had gathered at our feet. A crowd of twisted faces, twisted thoughts. A crowd of people, but not a crowd of humans.
         “Fight, fight, fight,” they chanted.
And so I fought.
I fought with the boy that for years I had called my friend. I fought because this was our way.
It had long been a tradition in our village that when two men had a dispute that could not be settled in the court of law, it was settled by a fight to the death. Between their sons.
If a son declined to fight, it was seen as a disgrace, a mark of shame upon the whole family.
And so I fought.
I fought mindlessly, senselessly, spurred on by the chanting of the crowd, the vague memory that I had once been sickened by this gruesome custom fading away. Blow after blow I dealt, blow after blow  I received. Between each punch, memories of my friend and me flashed through my mind. Playing in the creek together, catching frogs when we were children. Knocking on the doors of our neighbours and then running away. Sitting on the fence, ogling the town girls as we talked of our dreams of becoming great knights and warriors. And now, here we were.
One of us would not survive this ordeal. One of us would never be able to live out his dreams. The other would be haunted by a nightmare for the rest of his life.
Perhaps if the crowd hadn’t been so deafening, so powerful, we would have put down our fists and embraced each other in realization of the foolishness of the situation. But the vultures were hungry, and their shrieks were loud. Their chanting challenged our pride, and in the heat of the moment, nothing is more important to a man than his pride.
And so we fought.
He punched me, and I punched him, and he punched me, and I punched him, until finally, a blow to his head brought him crashing to the floor.
I remember steeling my heart for the next act. I remember gritting my teeth while I smothered away any trace of humanity and emotion as I placed my foot on his neck as I had seen so many do before me. I did not hesitate to step down, crushing my opponent’s windpipe and bringing instant death. In that brief moment, I had become a machine. My motions so automatic, so detached, that the crowd had been cheering for a full five seconds before I realized what I had done.
It was as if I had come out of a trance. The sight of my friend’s lifeless body brought me to my knees and drew tears from my eyes.
The crowd cheered, the vultures squawked, but I wept. I wept for the boy I had just killed. I wept for his family. But most of all, I wept for myself. I wept because today I had just taken one step farther from being a person, and one step closer to becoming part of the crowd.
I will always remember the day I traded a piece of my humanity for pride.