On the side of the Road

I spend at least 3 hours a week driving Highway miles from one point to another. Sometimes there are traffic jams, road construction and delays, I never know what I’m going to encounter from one trip to the next but I can always count on seeing Roadkill. Deer, Raccoons, possums, an occasional bird, I even saw a coyote once. It always bothers me much like the circus when I was a child. Sadness just washes over me when I enter a circus, I had to stop attending even though my sweet grandpa was a Shriner and got free tickets. I had to make excuses because nobody else was staying home and I had never heard anybody else talk about their feelings concerning animals.

When I was a kid, there use to be an animal control truck that would gather all the dead animals from the road. It was a small town but I imagine it happened all over the state. It seemed more dignified then leaving them on the side of the road to become one with the pavement. This obviously doesn’t happen anymore as I see the same roadkill over and over on my weekly trips.

I am thinking particularly of one deer. He has been there for months on an extremely busy stretch of M-14. He must have come from the Barton Hills area. Not posh enough apparently. I have watched him deteriorate from a plump deer to skin and bones, still on the side of the road. One minute you are a happy deer, frolicking in the prairie, enjoying the sun during an afternoon nap and then you are dead, lying on a concrete slab, cars whizzing by, oblivious to your demise. Just another bit of roadkill to avoid or turn away from.

I don’t have the solution to cleaning up the roadkill. It just seems so undignified to finish out your life lying on the side of the road for all the world to see. I suppose I could sew little covers and drop them on the animal as I sped by. I’m sure it must be a quick death for which I am grateful. I often wonder if the lights mesmerize them into a sort of hypnotic state that renders them helpless and therefore roadkill. Do the little souls float up from their bodies or seep into the concrete, ashes to ashes, dust to dust?

There is a theory that animals should be the greeters at the gates to another life. When a cat or dog shies away from a person aren’t you suspicious of them, like they have a secret evil life that only animals can see? I vote for cats as they are a bit more discerning. Dogs are “love me, love me” and cats are more “what can you do for me?” I could see a panel of 8 or 10 felines wearing robes, passing judgement and handing out sentences. Giving you that blinking look that says, “where did you think you were going, you were late feeding me too many evenings. Karma is a bitch.”