So I was driving home from the bookstore today after having celebrated two full weeks of employment by purchasing a book by the mysterious Thomas Pynchon. I was driving down a street in a residential area, near an elementary school in fact. Suddenly, I saw movement on the road ahead of me.
A mother pheasant was attempting to cross the street with a gaggle of little pheasant babies in tow. It took several seconds to register what I was seeing, but finally I put on the brakes and brought my car to a halt quite a distance from where they were crossing. The mother had seen my approach, however, and was now frozen in fear in the middle of my lane. "Go," I said, as kindly and encouragingly as I could, as though she could hear and understand me. A car was coming up behind me, obviously upset that I was stopped in the middle of the street. "GO!" I shouted to the mother pheasant. If I lived inside a Hollywood movie, I probably would have said, "For the love of God, save yourself! Protect your little ones! I'll hold off the evil monsters while you escape!" or something like that.
The point was, I suddenly took upon myself the responsibility of caring for this tiny family. The car behind me honked, but there was no way I was moving until the pheasants were safely out of my lane. I continued to urge them on mentally, and finally the mother snapped out of her panic and kept moving. They crept across the dotted line and I cheered. Elated, I put on the gas and started to continue on my way.
At that moment, a car came flying through the opposite lane. It either didn't see the mother and her babies or didn't care. I followed the vehicle with my eyes, transfixed. The wheel barely missed the mother, but it hit two or three of the chicks dead on. I watched them get flattened under the wheel, watched one get fly into the air before falling still on the pavement. The rest of the pheasants scattered in terror. It was the first time I can remember that I've seen a living being larger than a fly go from alive to dead before my very eyes. I burst into tears. I didn't know what else to do, so I drove on quickly in a panic until I reached home.
The morale of the story is either that I was reminded how fleeting and fragile our existence is, or that I'm extremely over-sentimental and dramatic. You be the judge.
A mother pheasant was attempting to cross the street with a gaggle of little pheasant babies in tow. It took several seconds to register what I was seeing, but finally I put on the brakes and brought my car to a halt quite a distance from where they were crossing. The mother had seen my approach, however, and was now frozen in fear in the middle of my lane. "Go," I said, as kindly and encouragingly as I could, as though she could hear and understand me. A car was coming up behind me, obviously upset that I was stopped in the middle of the street. "GO!" I shouted to the mother pheasant. If I lived inside a Hollywood movie, I probably would have said, "For the love of God, save yourself! Protect your little ones! I'll hold off the evil monsters while you escape!" or something like that.
The point was, I suddenly took upon myself the responsibility of caring for this tiny family. The car behind me honked, but there was no way I was moving until the pheasants were safely out of my lane. I continued to urge them on mentally, and finally the mother snapped out of her panic and kept moving. They crept across the dotted line and I cheered. Elated, I put on the gas and started to continue on my way.
At that moment, a car came flying through the opposite lane. It either didn't see the mother and her babies or didn't care. I followed the vehicle with my eyes, transfixed. The wheel barely missed the mother, but it hit two or three of the chicks dead on. I watched them get flattened under the wheel, watched one get fly into the air before falling still on the pavement. The rest of the pheasants scattered in terror. It was the first time I can remember that I've seen a living being larger than a fly go from alive to dead before my very eyes. I burst into tears. I didn't know what else to do, so I drove on quickly in a panic until I reached home.
The morale of the story is either that I was reminded how fleeting and fragile our existence is, or that I'm extremely over-sentimental and dramatic. You be the judge.
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