I had a FABULOUS day so far today. I am off work, the kid is in school/Girl Scouts/wandering around town looking for a familar face.
More posting on the fabulous day later.
I know this is going to seem really trivial.
I was driving home from Borders (Heaven) and suddenly saw in the other lane, a freshly hit squirrel. It happens. All the time.
This one was trying like hell to get away from the road. But it couldn't. It's head was smashed and stuck to the road. It was trying though. It's back legs were pushing to move the rest of the body in a frenzy. But it wasn't happening.
My soul was bruised. No crying, no screaming, just a very black spot dotted and spread like grease on a paper towel. Perhaps this is my drama spot. I'm usually devoid of the D word. I can't stand mine or anyone else's.
All I could think of .... how horrible must that be. To lie there in fear when the morning started off in darting around for sustenance to put away for another day. I wonder which animal will find his stash.
What could I have done? Stopped the car and pushed him out of the road with a stick? He would have been hit before I could park. Another car was already on its way as I passed.
I am usually quite an observant driver. The left front panel on my car suggests something entirely different but when it comes to animals and not cement poles, I try very hard to keep my reflexes alert and speed under control.
Especially after the time in my early 20s when I cruised through a red light and was pulled over. The officer needed a reason as to why I did it.
Because if I tried to stop I would have skidded through it.
That was not a good defense, as I was to learn 4 seconds later because In THAT case, the officer pointed out that I was speeding as well.
What am I trying to say here without being offensive? Let's try not to put other beings in misery. (To which some people will say, FABULOUS! Completely run it over and kill it instead of a partial death!). I don't really know how to avoid these things. I can say that really, I've hit only one animal since 1987 and couldn't find it on the road upon pulling over. I'm guessing it ran away.
Oh and there was a deer who jumped out of the woods into my car once but I was in traffic so only going about 10 mph. And I have a Saturn. He left no dents.
So for the sake of not having that particular burned image of living hell in your mind (unless you have your own, I know I'm not the only one), or having your children see it out of the car window...get your pilot's permit. Or just drive mindfully.
Seriously though. It sucked.
7 comments:
Beloved had to stop the other day for a cat that had been hit and was still alive - he was going to his car to get an old sweatshirt for it when another car ran over its head, killing it intantly. then the lady who owned the cat came out of the house...he felt so bad he walked her back inside and made her a cup of tea... sigh. at least you're not the only one who cares... :)
Oh Annie, that is truly an intense story. Oh that poor cat, that poor woman.
Stories like those make me feel justified in keeping my annoying, stinky but safe from cars, cat inside. We live on a really busy road. One of the neighborhood cats just got hit last week.
I give you guys credit for stopping at all. And wow - the extra mile with the tea. You guys are wonderful!!!!!!!
I have no stomach for an animal's suffering either. I hit an animal once - a cat. I was speeding, and I came over a hill, and saw it, and I slammed on the brakes and zigged and it zipped to the left and I steered to the right and then it suddenly reversed itself and I went right over it. I saw it in my rear view mirror, and it was running away, dragging it's rear legs.
I was completely distraught, and my friend (with me and equally distraught) and I stopped immediately and went looking for the cat. We even went door to door for a block in every direction asking if they had a cat. All cats were accounted for - we never found it, but I remember it dragging it's hindquarters like it happened just now.
I don't know what you can do in that circumstance; I really don't. Mercy is relative to what you can stand; to what you can live with.
What an awful thing it is to see a living thing suffer. I'm so sorry.
(((Hug)))
Thanks FB.
And I think I feel worse for you being that you unfortunately had to hit something. Whatever the form of witness, suffering is just not the movie that my paid ticket stands for. It's more the gum under my seat.
To weigh in here, on Sunday I saw two squirrels meet their fates in one week. Both were dashing across roads, and both met tires as inevitably as intersecting laser lines. It's strange, but the last time I had been in full view of a squirrel-hitting was in the Eighties. Same circumastances. Squirrel in full flight across a busy road and the two paths Squirrel and Tire intersected.
All three times I was seized with an involuntary shriek "Nooooooo!" as if I was screaming for God to freeze the scene before it was too late. The scene never froze. I snapped my head away at the moment of impact, but get a split-second's worth of violence anyway. It's horrible. HORRIBLE.
But if I'd have seen what you did, Shades, and your Beloved, Annie, I'm sure I would have fainted. I can't look at a hit corpse of the road. I can't look at that carnage--that smashed flesh, mangled and disfigured. ughhh. But one that is squirming, and only partially squished? Ohmygod.
That should have been "one Sunday," but in mid-type I realized that they both weren't on one Sunday, but rather within the whole week--so strike the two words following the first comma from the last response and capitalize its "i".
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