The Bird

I ran over a bird today with my car. It was the strangest thing. I was on Rt. 22 headed to work, and I had just moved over from the left lane to the right, and spotted this white bird…a gull? a dove? I’m not sure what it was, but it was sitting smack dab in the middle of the road facing me. I was almost looking into its eyes. I was traveling at 65-70 mph and had nowhere to go, no way to avoid it and my car hit the bird. I felt the thump of the impact, and when I looked in the rearview mirror all I saw was a flurry of white feathers.

I like to think the reason I hit it was because the bird was injured anyway, and was unable to fly away, some sort of fate, karma. I felt just awful about it, and the feeling hung with me all day. Sometimes I’m pretty sure I care more about the welfare of animals more than that of many people. I’m not going to shed a tear over all the hoopla with the Michael Jackson memorial services today, but the death of a bird at my hands tears me up beyond reason.