Birds circled overhead. I didn’t look up to see them, but I heard their flapping and their calls. I knew they’d come. I wanted them here.

My hands grasped my knees, legs folded on the green grass of the hilltop. From below, my clan looked up, first at me and then at the birds, knowing what was coming. Scents of boiling pots and cooking vegetables flowed from the camp, yet I wanted none of the food.

Soon, my mental acuity would go. Then, my eyesight. My senses would fail, and my hands would go numb in my hunger and dehydration. I would die here, meditating.

The birds circling overhead would dive down and return me to the earth in the beauty of the sky burial.