Requiem

It was a slow day at work and I found myself talking to one of my coworkers about hoarders and the tv show with the same name. Last week they showed a woman who, in a way, loved and cared for nature so much she would sometimes bring home an animal she had found dead on the side of the road. They showed an owl she had, all wrapped in plastic. Gross, yes. Fascinating, yes.
Anyway, I told A. that I sometimes feel the urge to remove dead animals off the road because the thought of them being smashed beyond recognition by cars is too hard for me. She asked if I'd ever actually done that and I answered that I'm always in the car and the Beloved isn't stopping.

Well.
I should have known.

As I cycled around the lake after work I found a recently deceased squirrel in the middle of the road. And I had a choice. But I really didn't. So, I parked the bike and walked back. It was a perfectly beautiful squirrel. With a perfectly round little puddle of blood under its head. I waved a car around me and just stood there for a bit. Then I gently grabbed its tail and pulled it ever so slowly to the side of the road and on the shoulder.
I only cried a little. I said: "Poor little thing" and left.

When I got home and realised I could not blink without seeing the image of the dead squirrel (and cry some more), I knew I had to replace that image with a happy, living one.
This is it.