w i n t e r
orange kitten
It's been unseasonably chilly these past few days and the rain has not stopped for over a week now. In the mornings it's a little foggy. Hard to see the fine details more than 25 yards ahead. I've heard if you take your eyes off the road for even a second you've traveled 60 feet. At the speeds I drive it's probably a little more.
I know I've mentioned before the ability one gets after spending a couple hours a day in a car at speed. You notice things normal people won't. Commuter people things. Details. It is no longer difficult to ascertain what something is on the side of the road. Dog. Possum. Deer. I've even been able to pick out bottle caps.
I tried to miss the kitten. A little orange thing. It was just moving too much. I was boxed in. Couldn't change lanes or slow down even though I saw it coming. I saw the poor thing's eyes and the front legs reaching for the curb that wasn't there. It was more than scared, I believe it had become mad in those moments.
I don't know how long it had been on the road trying to dodge traffic before my turn came. There was really only a flash of orange between the car in front of me and the time it disappeared under my hoodline. But in that brief flash I saw it all. I could only move a couple feet right or left. I moved left and picked wrong. Two small bumps told me so.
In my rearview I saw the kitten scramble again, go between the wheels on the car behind me before being struck once more by the car behind that. And still it moved. Then I was over the hill, through a traffic light, two lanes to the left, and miles away.
I thought about the kitten as I tuned the radio. I though how maybe in times past I'd have stopped. It looked pretty pointless, but the fact is I didn't even try. That part of me that would have was overshadowed by another part that said it didn't matter anyway, go ahead on, get in on time. Tune in track three of the Church, watch out for that truck on the right, open your soda. Is the radar on?
Then to my own shame I realized that I really didn't care about the kitten.
With everything else going on it seemed it didn't mean a damn thing. Just seconds after the incident and right before I tuned out the radio I heard a news announcer mention that the militia in West Timor had raided UN mission and set people on fire. Literally lit them on fire in the street.
Crime may be down nationally but it is up in parts known to me. My parents had there house broken in to last week while they were out of town.
I saw a wreck Saturday between two SUV's and no one was moving afterward.
Yesterday on the way home I saw a track though the high grass by the side of the road and there was a car at the end of it resting by a line of trees. A moment later I saw the ambulance heading up the other side of the highway.
Each time I see something like this or hear of it it surprises me less. It impacts me less. In the end, perhaps it means less to me.
This coming from a guy who protects the spiders around his house because the webs are intriguing. A guy who moves worms off the pavement after a summer shower so they don't end up dried out in the heat. Who plants odd seeds he finds and waits months to see what comes up.
And yet I find I cannot care about the death of a simple orange kitten.
goodnight 9.6.00