Road kill

Riding along Auberry Road, it's hot, cars whing past me like I'm the road kill I keep cycling past. A dog with his face turned up in a grimace. A snake ready for bootmaking. A wolf with his outsides turned in, and his insides flapping in the wind.

Road kill is a part of riding. It's a sad fact of our world, but call it balance. The Zen of the Road: What is alive and travels along the road where cars are in use, may also die and become part of the road where cars are in use. Sometimes I think of my mountain bike-riding acquaintance who, after recounting his tale of an almost literal run-in with a bear on the trails, told me he'd "never ride a road bike. I've seen the cars. That's just crazy."

A rabbit lays there, glassy-eyed and adorible, in that rigor mortis-kind-of way.

I thought of collecting the pelts once, of all the animals I'd passed and making a huge coat. Traci and the Technicolor Vomitus Coat, composed of mice, foxes, frogs, dogs, cats, snakes and ostrich.

Wait-- ostrich?

Yeah.

Not sure how it happened. Wasn't quite sure how to tell you. But the picture is worth a thousand words, isn't it?