Reflecting on a Road Kill.

There was a dead Wood Pigeon near the top of the lane when I went for a walk this evening. It was obviously a road kill and the freshness of the blood indicated that it hadn’t been there very long.

‘So what,’ you might say. ‘There’s no shortage of Wood Pigeons and everything dies.’

But this isn’t about Wood Pigeons; it’s about a Wood Pigeon – a creature as individual as I am, a creature which only this morning was brimming with life and consciousness setting out to do whatever Wood Pigeons do. But there it was, lying in a position to which no bird is ever accustomed in life with a small pool of blood under its head and its eyes closed in death.

And of course everything dies, but death is still the most definitive of endings and all endings are significant. And maybe that’s why it was only natural for me to close my own eyes in abject sorrow at the sight of it.