15. roadkills

It had the feel of a David Lynch movie. The mist was thick and the headlights of the car bounced upon it, it was like driving into a wall that kept receding away. We were on the motorway in the dead of night, having decided to drive home overnight as Fox was finishing work at 9 pm. It was very unsettling, at least for me. And then suddenly, what just hopped in front of the car? No, not Laura Palmer but a stupid white bunny that was treating me to my very own experience of "bunny caught in the headlights".

I screamed a scream I would have prefer Fox not to have heard for it was more akin to a 10 year old girl's having a bad dream than to a 35 year old man's driving a van, albeit a small one. The rabbit did what any rabbit is supposed to do when caught in headlights, it froze. And this, I'm pleased to say, saved its life. I started to relax when Fox said: "Imagine if it had been a deer". Indeed.

I had never killed any animal on the road (or off the road for that matter), and after my encounter with the rabbit my eyes rarely strayed from the road. So imagine my surprise few days later when my first roadkill didn't turn up to be a rabbit or a deer but a bird. Yes, a bird. The threat came from the air. The little buggers are darting from one edge to the other on either side of the road and quite close to the ground, in search of food or mate. But oblivious to the traffic. The poor thing hit the windshield with a thump! and ricocheted over the car.

I was mortified, so Fox came to my rescue: "It's probably just stunned hon, they always flight into windows and stuff". Windows travelling at 110 km/hr? Doubt it. But I feel lucky, really, because when I told the story to Cathy she remembered when she hit a bird once. It hit the front of the car, rebounded off the roof and crashed on the windshield of the car travelling behind, going through it and losing its head in the process. That kind of carnage would buy me years on the couch.