Road Kill 2

Last week I posted a blog about my new job and how absolutely satisfying it is.  A week later, I still feel as positive and gleeful as I ever did.  The positives are fantastic and I've never been happier.  The negatives are still quite heart wrenching.

Job-wise, nothing is bad or disappointing, but I continue to see dead lifeless carcasses lying by the roadside.  The norm for anyone who travels the highway a lot and I dread the thought that one day, I may become as jaded by the sight as many of these people have become.

Last week's blog I remarked on the menagerie of different animals I'd seen who had lost the head on battle with a speeding motorist, the worst being a dog that had managed to drag itself off the road and into the ditch, where it had died, leaving it's companion alone and crying next to it's lifeless body.  Though I was speeding by at 100km/h, the moment seemed to pass in slow motion.  I could almost hear my heart tearing apart at the sight.

Every day since, when I pass that stretch of highway, I glance into the ditch at the approximated sight of this depressing event, and pay an emotional homage to the pet and it's faithful companion.  However, in the days that have passed, I've seen some other victims of the road, including a young cat that I passed by early this morning.  It didn't look very big.  Just a young cat, probably still a kitten in many ways, lying lifeless on the side of the road, only a couple hundred feet from the tiny little house with the windows glowing from within.  For a second, I wondered if the inhabitants of the house have noticed that their cat never made it home the night before.  I never let my cat outside without being attached to a leash or tether.  Thinking of him being hit by a passing car, would devastate me and I doubt I could survive such heartbreak.

The saddest thing was a fox and two young kits, dead in the middle of the highway, just south of Melfort, SK.  I thought, for a second, that they'd died together trying to cross the highway last night.  I thought that at least they died together, that the kits wouldn't suffer in the wild as orphans.  The more I imagined what had happened, the more horrified I became.  "What if," I speculated, "The mother had been hit, but the kits had survived, but like the faithful black lab from the canine duo last week, the kits lied by their mother's dead body, ultimately being hit by an automobile in the process?"

I know that witnessing dead wildlife at the roadside is something that will not subside.  It's something that I will continue to bear witness to for however long I do this job.  I pray that I won't become calloused to it and stop noticing how heinous the deaths are, but I don't wish to become overwhelmed with grief as much as I have been in recent weeks.

I pay my respects to the fallen victims as I drive past them, acknowledging their existence.  Then by the time I arrive home, my cat, Monkey, is always at the door with hugs and kisses for daddy.  These experiences have made me appreciate him all the more.

I had to end this blog on a positive note... 😏

Road Kill

Since being laid off from my job at the Case-New Holland manufacturing plant, three years ago, this month, I've been struggling to find gainful employment.  Over the three years, I've bounced from one menial job to another, never really finding anything that I loved.  I really liked and was even proud when I worked for the city, last summer, but alas, when summer ended, so did the job and any prospects of being hired on a permanent basis, died with the turning of the leaves.

After that, I had a couple more terrible jobs, one working nights replenishing shelves at a local grocer, for minimum wage and only three shifts per week.  The other was full time hours for not much more money, but it was quite unfulfilling.  Pride in my work there, never ever entered the picture.  So when I lost that job, while it was a shock, it was sort of a blessing.  It was an alignment of the stars and the planets.  It was almost as if every bit of shitty bad luck I'd had in the previous three years, was all for helping me secure the new job that I have now.

Initially, when I got let go from the hotel gig, I'd hoped to get a day job, so as to avoid being away at night, but this job has me starting in the wee early mornings.  3am, to be exact, but it doesn't really matter, as my day usually ends in the late morning so I still have the rest of the day to spend with my "boy" (Monkey) or attend movie matinees or go to doctor appointments.  Whatever I want to do, I can and will.

My job is described as a "Line Driver".  Essentially, I work for a new courier company and I run parcels and packages up to the delivery personnel in three distinctive markets.  Prince Albert, Melfort and Humboldt, Saskatchewan.  Each day, I depart at 3am and drive a route that reaches about four hundred and fifty-plus kilometers.  That's about 280 miles for my American readers.  The early morning affords me the luxury of little or no traffic on the highways.  I work alone so I can crank up the tunes and sing as loud as I want.  Or as of Thursday, I (finally) figured out how to download podcasts to my phone and I've listened to podcasts for the last two days.

I really really love this job and my enthusiasm about it seems to have impressed my boss, too, so unless I do something really (REALLY) stupid, I don't see (fingers crossed) ever losing this job.  However, as much as I love it, it does have a drawback.  It's not the hours, nor is it the fact that I'm away from my "boy" for several hours.  It's not even the constant driving.  As I said, I love the job and except for being away from Monkey, everything is fine.  It's just the road kill that I see laying at the roadside every day.

Living where I did growing up, I was used to seeing the odd skunk or badger or (tons) of gophers bite the big one on our highways.  Even travels you'd see the odd deer.  Years ago, I even managed to accidentally hit an owl on the highway as it swooped to grab a recently deceased carcass, just as my vehicle intersected the same point on the highway.  There was a tremendous crushing sound and the little car that I was driving, bounced a couple times.  I was horrified, but continued on my way.  With no other choice, that is what I do nowadays when I drive past the menagerie of different animals sprawled out at the side of the highway, their lives long disappeared from their bodies.

I never realized that there were raccoons in Saskatchewan until last week when I saw six lifeless raccoons along my route.  I've also seen baby deer and I can't help but imagine the sorrow that the mother must be feeling when their young offspring is lost so tragically.  I've also seen a beaver and a couple foxes.  The saddest thing I'd seen, up until today, was a cat that had been hit trying to cross the road.

I only started this job, officially, last Tuesday.  Wednesday, went fine, but Thursday, I hit a poor bird that flew in front of the van I was driving.  If the van hadn't had an antenna, I'm convinced that it would've escaped, unscathed, but because there was an antenna, it was caught and it's neck was snapped.  I know this because it was stuck on the van, forcing me to stop to remove it.  I was beside myself, with grief.  I pulled it off the van and I'm not ashamed to admit that I was borderline in tears.  I've never been an hunter.  I don't enjoy fishing.  And, as much as I enjoy the taste of steak and bacon and meat, in general, I don't ever want to see how it goes from a living entity to my plate.  So seeing this lifeless bird and knowing that I had a hand in it's demise, I was devastated.  I pulled the bird off the van repeatedly saying how sorry I was.  I knelt over it for a moment, admiring it's beauty and the vibrant colours of it's feathers, but mortified that I'd killed it.  After a few minutes of silence, looking at the small bird, I continued on my way.  I was thankful, in part... No.  I was completely thankful that the bird had died instantly.  I don't know what I would've been prepared to do had it been alive.  The next day, however, it happened again.

The next morning, I was driving the big cube van when I hit a duck just south of Prince Albert.  Again, if I would've had the van I'd used the day before, I'm convinced the duck would've made it, however, I had the cube van whose box extended over the cab by, at least, two feet.  This duck looked panicked as I hit it.  I say panicked, because our eyes met just as it hit the windshield.  There was a heavy thud and the roof of the van shook as it bounced over the cab and against the cube.  I never stopped for that one, but saw it in the mirror, bouncing along the road.  I never saw a carcass in the days that followed and have speculated that perhaps it had lived.  That relief was short-lived as I then pictured it with a broken leg, causing it to not being able to swim.  Or a broken wing, which meant no flying south for the winter or escaping predators.

This is the kind of shit that plagues my mind.

The other morning it was quite foggy.  In the misty air, I passed three deer and a moose.  I tried to honk my horn as I passed them, in hopes of scaring them away from the highway that was growing more busy as the sun began to rise in the east.

Three paragraphs ago, I wrote that the saddest thing up until today, was a cat that had been clipped crossing the highway.  The number one saddest thing I've seen now and it'll be hard pressed to find anything more sad and depressing than this.  I saw in the ditch this morning two dogs.  One black and one white and shaggy.  It appeared that the white shaggy dog had been hit and managed to pull itself to safety in the ditch, where it had died, leaving it's companion, the black dog to sit quietly at it's side.  I was speeding past when I noticed the duo, but time seemed to slow right down, feeling like several minutes as I passed by.  I can't get that image out of my mind.  I can't imagine the sorrow that animal must be experiencing having lost it's best friend.

All the sadness that I witness along the highways, makes me all the more thankful to return home, where my cat, Monkey, meets me at the door, greeting me with kitty hugs and kisses.  I say I can't imagine the sorrow that these animals must endure when they lose their mate or offspring, but perhaps I can.  If I lost Monkey, it would destroy me.  Even now, knowing that he will live another ten years or more, I'm horrified to know that one day I'll come home from work and I won't be met at the door with kitty hugs and kisses.  This is a fact of life and it depresses me.