I was headed toward the birds. Every fiber in me rebelled against their intent. How hideous in their appetite the vultures looked. I heard Harry, in his rage, dismissing his lover in the story:

“‘Don’t be silly. I’m dying now. Ask those bastards.’ He looked over to where the huge, filthy birds sat, their naked heads sunk in the hunched feathers.”

Yes, naked heads, that was right. Naked-beaked they sat in judgment on my life. The record was mixed. There were things I still needed to set right. For that I had to be found. I had to set a course and stick to it, build and not destroy, find a path to the light. The only way out was through.

There was Harry, dying in Africa, unable to love the woman who loved him, hurting her instead, full of bile. “It was not her fault that when he went to her he was already over.” Dying from the inside. “He had destroyed his talent by not using it, by betrayals of himself and what he believed in. …”

As I approached the birds, one launched itself into the air, its massive wings casting long shadows. I shuddered. Climbing and plunging, I pressed on, until at last I saw a man on a ridge, far-off and faint but not so faint that he could not serve as my marker.

A small group came into view, farther down the ridge. I waved. They waved. I saw a helicopter circling in the sky. How strange, I thought, not connecting it to me as my savior-bird. And now I saw a path out. My thirst was overwhelming, until I found myself surrounded by fellow hikers — generous, worried Spaniards — and I drank.

They told me my friends were looking for me farther up. They asked if I could climb. I said I was sorry, but no. I looked up the trail and everything converged: the helicopter landing, my friends gesturing, the rescue crew clambering out the chopper, the straight-backed Spanish man who’d given me water climbing toward them.