Roadkill
I was probably about seven years old when I first saw roadkill. Up until then, I was too short to see the road from the back seat and rarely was focused on the street when walking around town- eyes focused on the sidewalk ahead of me and the bright skies above. So these cases never caught my eye; remaining something that came up occasionally in movies or TV as some silly, foreign concept that my undeveloped brain couldnāt fathom as real.
My mom called attention to it with a slight gasp from behind me- I was shocked. A light brown squirrel so fresh and yet so dead, blood splattered on the yellow line of the bike lane next to its lifeless corpse. Entrails spewed out of the stomach, I choked out a cry of confusion. I remembered seeing other squirrels make it across the street with ease on my walk earlier, ones so similar to this sitting in front of me. What made this one so unlucky? My mother patted my back, steering me away from it with an attempted consolation
āItās just a part of life, dear. Keep walking, itāll fade out of your mind soon.ā
Reluctant, I stood and stared into its dull eye for a brief few seconds before mom urged me to keep walking once more. The memory of this specific squirrel faded fast, just as she promised- though the concept of roadkill was now ingrained into my psyche as tangible. As real. As something I could reach out and feel, running my hands through the slimy guts of life and death and letting the viscera drip through my fingers like sand.
Roadkill seemed to appear regularly from then on. The second time was ubiquitous; the third time was routine. A near weekly occurrence as the years went on, dead critters slathered across the asphalt just becoming redder strokes in my abstract life.
The only other time these strokes really stuck out to me was in my freshman year of high school.
Another dead squirrel, not unlike the one I saw seven years ago in appearance. The body was clean, though- as if it just keeled over with no violent aggression at play. Another strange detail is that rather than being in the road like the countless others, this one was on the sidewalk. Hardly roadkill, though it was in my path.. The first time I encountered it on my way home from school, I just stepped over it and walked on.
The day after that, I paused and stared, slight confusion that it was still there, still untouched by the rest of the world. Roadkill never lasted long it seemed, though I suppose this wasn't roadkill. I shrugged to step over it and walk on once more.
But it remained.
Day after day after day after day this squirrel remained, uneaten and unbothered as the fur began to fall off in patches. Oddly, the other roadkill encounters seemed to cease- this one squirrel being the only dead thing I encountered on my daily travels during this period.
Weeks passed. My mental health took a hit, unfamiliar to the level of work and difficulty high school combined with relationship strains would bring. I relapsed on a foggy night in December, just a few days before break. Snow covered the schoolyard and paths out into the town, left unplowed until the new year.
And it remained.
Before, walking over the squirrel corpse just felt normal. āAnother part of lifeā as my mom put it once. But now that the snow had melted and more than just a faint outline was visible, the decomposition was obvious. The temperature shifting had taken the poor thingās eye with it, the skull poking out from the dry socket. Gaunt body still stiffened into the fetal position, I considered how it must feel. Trapped in the same uncomfortable position day after day without any acknowledgement for better or worse.. I scratched my arm and looked away. I had to do something about this.
The next day, I brought a lilac to school, plucked from the garden in my neighborhood. I tucked the vivid purple flower into my pocket, making sure it didnāt get crushed in my weaving around campus throughout the day. On my way home later, I knelt down to the bony thing and laid it over the dry body, careful not to disturb or touch the body myself. Was this act selfless, selfish, or just foolish? Meant to bring solace to my own soul, rather than closure to the corpse? Or was it just a hollow action without any true meaning, a spectacle for onlookers? I didnāt say a prayer for the squirrel, not that I was religious anyway. I just left the lilac and walked home.
The squirrel was gone the next day. I held the belief deep down that the bright colored flower probably just drew a predatorās eye to the carcass, but I still questioned if there was something bigger at play. Something more divine.
I would receive my answer the next day when my mom struck a possum while driving me in. Not just a possum, either. A mother carrying joeys in her pouch. All dead upon contact, she lamented while climbing back into the minivan to resume driving. As the roadkill sightings re-entered my life, I carried a spark of that same youthful shock I experienced years ago. Re-sensitized to the nature of death in transit, I dreamt of planting gardens of lilacs to lay with all the roadkill, all the uncared for creatures needing some closure of their own. Maybe I was just staring into the rear view mirror too often. Maybe I needed to look into a different mirror. Maybe I just longed for a break from the maggots and buzzards and corvidsā watchful eyes that seemed to drift between the street faire and me.
Maybe it is just a part of life.