JD

Generic white, working class, skilled laborer dude with tattoos, from the South, screaming at the void.

1 minute read

“Road kill has its seasons Just like anything It’s possums in the autumn And it’s farm cats in the spring”*

Murder in the Red Barn Tom Waits

Today it was mice. They scamper across the road at night. In the headlights, it could be a leaf blowing. And today there were several of them, unlucky enough to not dodge oncoming tires. Yesterday it was a possum’s spine, picked clean by turkey vultures and other scavengers.

Squirrels aren’t uncommon. Nor the occasional snake. It’s always saddest to see a dead box turtle or fox. One day last Spring, near a creek, flattened frogs covered a stretch of road. After the sun set, they must’ve hopped onto the asphalt to enjoy its residual heat. It isn’t that anyone especially wants to run over an animal, but it happens. It darts one way, we swerve the other, it changes its mind and winds up below the tire. Or in the case of the frogs, us humans were faced with two lanes of amphibians refusing to move.

I hesitate to say it’s how nature works. Cars aren’t natural. But Nature recycles the corpses quickly. Feed on plants and animals to stay alive and reproduce, then feed others when you pass on. That’s how these things go. It isn’t poignant or profound. It just is. Life goes on in this closed little system on this little rock.

When I die, and I’ve already talked to Charlotte about this, bury me in a pine box on the mountain. No vault. No embalming. Let the worms feed on me, and the tree roots grow through me. Let me go back to this land, this Earth, instead of keeping me separate from it all.

Today’s Miles: 7, easy pace

Orginally posted OCT 15, 2022 to a retired substack

Black and white photo of a tree lined gravel road going into a mountain hollow.

#globalcowpie# #running

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