Dinner is Served

I lurk in the tree with the other harpies, preening our feathers. My long toes wrap around the branches. The most important people in the world (at least, that’s what they think they are) are on their way here. They fly in on private jets. They sail in with yachts bigger than apartment buildings. They are chauffeured in stretch limousines. They drive custom-made Lambos and Cybertrucks and Rolls-Royces and Ferraris. They travel with sycophantic retinues, and my mouth waters.

They don’t know I’m here. They don’t know any of us are here. We are silent, though our bellies are not. Our bellies groan like angry hippos. Our bellies are distended and roiling like the angry green clouds that prophesy tornadoes. We hold our wings across our mouths to stifle our giggles. We drool like Pavlovian dogs at what these billionaires will soon do for us.

The wind blows their scent our way. Exquisite perfumes. Overpriced beard oil. Bespoke toiletries. Gourmet food and drink. We pull our wings away from our mouths and grin at one another.

They tried to kill us, but we were reborn. We are unstoppable.

We wait until their servants set the table. White linen tablecloths. Ice sculptures in the shape of nubile girls. Sterling silver cutlery. Wedgewood china. Silk velvet chairs in blood red.

The servers carry out all sorts of scrumptious delights. Dom Pérignon champagne. Beluga caviar. Bluefin tuna. Dubai chocolate. Yubari king melons. Napoleon brandy. Foie gras. Fugu. Even Wagyu cheeseburgers gilded with twenty-four-carat gold leaf, I shit you not.

A leering man cops a feel from one of the servers. She smiles sweetly and pretends not to be outraged, but I can smell her anger. It’s both a seasoning and a laxative.

We wait until the servants leave. We have no truck with them. They’ve been spitting in the food all along. The one who was just groped nods to us before vanishing into the kitchen.

Our beef is with the 1%. They sit down at this feast, ready to boast about how they’ll next fuck the world over for fun and profit. We leap from our branches, screeching at the top of our lungs. The men stare up at us, their mouths and eyes as round as their dinner plates.

They called us monsters while they destroyed lives and the environment. To add insult to injury, they banned us from bathrooms.

This is what happens when we have nowhere to relieve ourselves. We’ve been saving it all for them. Their low is our joy.

We are naked as the day we hatched, and we are glorious. Our voices are a battlecry. Our feathers rattle like sabers. Our talons are knives. Our bulging bellies heave and contract, and then we evacuate our bowels all over these oil tycoons, politicians, pharmaceutical executives, crooked judges, kings, and dictators. All our discomfort slides out of our cloacas and onto these horrible humans, and we spray them over and over again until our bellies are once again flat and smooth.

The men bolt for cover, but there is none to be found. The doors to the building have been locked, and the servants will not let them in. Some cower. Some order us to cease this nonsense immediately. Some soil themselves, which seems fitting.

I divebomb a man known for his sadistic pleasure in the debasement of women and children. I rake deep lines down his back, tearing open his Prada power suit. He cries out and trips, rolling in our splattered feces. I cackle at his impending infection.

They thought they’d be safe here on this private island. They thought no one could bother them. They didn’t know us enbies and trans folx fly now.