I was almost halfway into a ten-mile run yesterday afternoon, about to start a challenging section of the workout, when I saw a dead cat in the roadside ditch. I wandered down to take a look. Why, I don't exactly know. I don't know whose it was. There was no apparent trauma. It was a dark-but-not-quite black creature, lying on its right side and facing away from the road. It didn't look to me as if it had died peacefully -- its eyes were cracked open and its lips were slightly bared in what could have been a mortal snarl -- but to me this is never the case anyway. Most death is peaceful only in the inevitable aftermath. Life is a struggle to the end.
A boxcar of despair
A boxcar of despair
A boxcar of despair
I was almost halfway into a ten-mile run yesterday afternoon, about to start a challenging section of the workout, when I saw a dead cat in the roadside ditch. I wandered down to take a look. Why, I don't exactly know. I don't know whose it was. There was no apparent trauma. It was a dark-but-not-quite black creature, lying on its right side and facing away from the road. It didn't look to me as if it had died peacefully -- its eyes were cracked open and its lips were slightly bared in what could have been a mortal snarl -- but to me this is never the case anyway. Most death is peaceful only in the inevitable aftermath. Life is a struggle to the end.