On Road Kill
I have been meaning to write about roadkill. Now is as good a time as any.
If you haven’t biked or walked significant distances, I don’t know if you can appreciate the numbers of animals meeting their end in the grill of a Hyundai Sonata.
Unfortunate animals line the roads at a rate of at least one per 1/4 mile, to be smelled if not seen. They are in all manner of final repose, from the seemingly tired to the unidentifiable round of fur and grease. I’ve seen dozens of species, wild things and domestic things.
I’m not scolding anyone or making a pitch. I’m no innocent.
Just yesterday I hit a goose. I rode, ringing my bell and clucking ( as you do when passing through a flock of fowl), warning a way. Well, I took a line close to the river, which happens to be where the geese thought safest. geese are not runners, and as the last ran to the water, I, trying to cut back inland, ran right into it. I think I was the more shocked of the two.
The goose and i have recovered, reconciled by continuing on with our separate lives.
In a way that’s not entirely without metaphor, over the past few thousand miles i’ve become accustomed to the presence of death along the road, as much as to all that living.
