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Monday, August 22, 2005
Squirrel in own personal hell
I saw one of the nastiest things I've seen in a long time this morning on the way into work. It involves a squirrel and a busy road, so if you're a sensitive soul, please click away now.
As drivers, we're all too aware of the dead bundles of fluff, beaks, bone and blood that litter our highways. It's very sad but that's human advancement for you: something's got to suffer and in the case of personal transportation, it's the little guys such as the rabbit, the hedgehog, the magpie, or even the badger. It's rare that it's actually us that causes these deaths though, we usually just run over the already squashed carcasses long after the death has occurred. Not that this is any better, it's just that it's slightly easier to ignore if it wasn't our fault.
Today's macabre scene involced a squirrel, a grey squirrel. Now, you may know that I love squirrels, I think they're ace little creatures. I love them all, whether grey or red, I'm not squirrelest. So it could only have been worse if it was a dog or a human girl clutching a dolly.
There in front of me was a dead squirrel. I swerved so as not to run over it, and just as I drove over, I saw it twitch. I looked into my rear view-mirror and saw that it wasn't dead: it's back legs had been squashed and it was hauling itself across the rest of the road to the safety of the verge. I don't know if he made it. God, I hope someone ran him over and put him out of his misery, the poor little fella, because he was certainly in a bad way.
For the rest of my journey I played the scene over and over in my head: him standing at the side of the road, psyching himself up, then making a dash for it, getting clipped by a gigantic machine, pain shooting up his little body as he tried to crawl to the other side, another machine running over his back legs making them a useless mangled mess, his mates watching in horror from the trees by the side of the road, shouting encouragement to try and get him to safety.
This bloody gruesome ordeal must have been utterly horrific for him, and yet it was all happening on such a small scale no one was really aware. It won't be on the news tonight, no one will remember him, there won't be a funeral or a gravestone.
So, if you would just join me in a 10 second silence please:
'Little grey squirrel: I didn't know you but you looked nice.
Sorry we hurt you, we didn't mean anything by it.'
.....posted at 9:11 am permalink
babyatom's
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