Why Not Go Gentle?

I saw a dead butterfly on the baking tarmac of Church Lane today. It was a Small White with its characteristic grey wing edges and a single black spot on each. It was quite beautiful, quite undamaged, and quite dead. I found it surprising because I don’t recall ever seeing a butterfly performing the function of a road kill before. That dubious honour usually goes to rats, squirrels, badgers, pheasants and wood pigeons. And I think I’ve said often enough that I find the death of anything disturbing.

I’m not the biggest fan of the Dark Rider, except when he comes on a mission of mercy which he sometimes does. I know that his eventual arrival is normal and necessary and inevitable, but I have difficulty dealing with a life force being separated from its host. Nevertheless, I hope that when he rides up and faces me I will have the guts to engage in no pointless struggle, but will climb willingly up behind him to be taken wherever the road leads.

And maybe I will discover at that point that he is no Dark Rider after all, but a shining golden one come to lead me to a saner, more peaceful world flowing with milk and 20-year-old malts; where balmy evenings are still and misty, the predatory instinct is left far behind, and around every bend is an attractive and assertive young woman just itching to make my acquaintance. I’m not of the Germanic persuasion, you see; ‘bugger Valhalla’ is my watchword. Why spend your rest time feasting and vomiting in a smoky hall when you could be frolicking nicely in a woodland glade?