Half an hour from Nicaragua’s capital, Managua, sits Masaya Volcano National Park. The vultures love it here, catching the warm sulfur-scented air that billows out of its crater. A sixteenth-century Spanish friar once called the place "La Boca del Infierno” (The Mouth of Hell). The birds, however, if they spoke Spanish or English, would probably just call it a fun ride.
Or, if the birds knew Russian, they would perhaps sit in trees and read Dostoyevsky, conversing with one another about the wisdom latent in passages such as the following, from The Brothers Karamazov:
My brother, a dying youth, asked the birds to forgive him. That may sound absurd, but when you think of it, it makes sense. For everything is like the ocean, all things flow and are indirectly linked together, and if you push here, something will move at the other end of the world. It may be madness to beg the birds for forgiveness, but things would be easier for the birds, for the child, and for every animal if you were nobler than you are—yes, they would be easier, even if only by a little. Understand that everything is like the ocean. Then, consumed by eternal love, you will pray to the birds, too. In a state of fervor you will pray them to forgive you your sins. And you must treasure that fervor, absurd though it may seem to others.
