Three Black Vultures Preaching by the Lake

At a quarter past three in the afternoon, Omar Enrique Berdugo Cabeza found them where lago 1 opens its waters between the vegetation. There were three black vultures — Coragyps atratus — with their wings spread toward the sun, motionless, as if they were holding up the sky with their arms. What science calls thermoregulation, Omar experienced differently: he felt that those black, solemn birds were preaching something to him, that there was in that gesture a kind of sign to keep moving forward along the path. And perhaps both things can be true at the same time. Black vultures spread their wings to warm themselves and dry their feathers after the night, but it is also hard to witness that ritual without something stirring inside you. Omar watched them until they were finished, until they folded their wings with calm deliberateness and flew away. Then he, too, continued on his way — carrying that strange and welcome feeling left behind by encounters you were never looking for.