Roadkill

Chapter 1- Roadkill

When I first found it, it was little more than a scrap of bloody fur. I don’t usually make it a habit to pick up roadkill, nor do I have a particular attachment to animals, especially wild ones. I took pity on the thing for reasons I could not explain and brought it into my car with me.

“I’m sorry James, but I don’t think I can make it today. I found something on the road, the poor thing was crushed nearly to death, it looks like it’s in a lot of pain”, I said, whispering into the phone “ I’m going to take it to a vet to see if they can save it.”

I know I was supposed to be sad at the thought of a dying animal, clearly in agony, and I did. However, I couldn’t help but feel relief. I did not have to go see James, my soon-to-be ex-husband. I would take this animal to a clinic, they'd fix it, it’d be released back into the wild and it’d be the perfect excuse to get out of attending another uncomfortable gathering with him and his overbearing mother.

I thought lifting it was going to be an ordeal but it wasn’t that difficult. I tried to pick it up as firmly and gently as I could and not hit any trees in the process. I’m not the most graceful person and I often find myself tripping over my own feet more often than not, so I made sure to walk carefully over large roots and vegetation.

I looked at the thing again, quite large. Black fur that I could tell would be shiny and silky under all that blood and grime. There were 4 giant gashes across its side, another one bright and bloody on one of its legs and across its nose. Its eyes were wide open and spinning this way and that as it took each panicked breath quickly like it would be its last.

I set it gently in the passenger's seat at the back and it kicked against it weakly, it had not resisted throughout the time I spent manoeuvring it out of the forest and into my car.

Strange for a wolf, I knew they were supposed to be aggressive and independent as creatures. My father would take me hunting for deer when I was younger, and we had come across a lone wolf once or twice, they’d snarl and snap their teeth but it usually wouldn’t go any farther than that before they got spooked and ran off into the trees. Tall thick trees that reached high into the sky, as if to touch something the rest of us couldn’t see. I wondered if maybe one day I could reach up, away from my quiet uneventful life and touch something new, something different.

The wolf no longer made as much noise, I could hear its breathing slowing so I sped up the car. Something had to be done about it, I wasn’t about to let it die. James was still on the phone, he was saying something, sure, but I wasn’t really listening. I had stopped listening to him a long time ago.

“You mean I have to reschedule the visit? Come on, you know my mother has been looking forward to this for months. It took ages to get you to even agree to it, to make the plans and all. Listen to me Diane, do not back out of this like you have backed out of everything important thing in your life, you will not embarrass me in front of my family. We will meet by 6 pm at the main home as we agreed. Don’t be la…”

The phone fell out of my pocket onto the floor and the call ended. Great.