Roadkill

By Dan Mulhollen

Mister Walker was driving to work on a crisp late-winter day. That previous day, he’d sprung forward into daylight savings time and had yet to fully adjust to the time change, and still felt himself lagging.

He watched the repurposed stores passing, too sleepy to be more than a bit amused by the changes. An old bowling alley ,where his old grade school class had bowled every Friday—him rarely scoring more than 100—had been half-demolished, the surviving half turned into a pizza parlor. What was now an Army-Navy store—filled with cheap impulse buys (a canteen for World War II-style hydration and a P51 Army can opener for proving how much weaker he was than the average recruit.) This was once a movie theater—he only learned that years later, but always wondered why an Army-Navy store would have an inclined floor. As the owners were veterans, he guessed it was to screw up civilians’ sense of balance.

But perhaps it was either his tiredness or preoccupation, that he failed to notice the dark object spring from underneath a parked car and right into his path. The sharp bump jolted his attention. He realized he had just run over a cat.

He forced himself to look back at the motionless mass, but did not stop. His schedule was too precise for such concern. It was just a cat, after all.

A beloved feline companion, maybe? But no, he decided—an owner would have to be terribly irresponsible to leave a cat outside on a busy major thoroughfare. Perhaps a cute kitten at one point that grew up to be a moody, uncooperative carnivore.

Anyway, Mister Walker always was a dog person—not a cat person, and he could never understand some people’s affection for these creatures. Treacherous beasts who rarely showed anything but indifference to their owner. A dog could be trained for anything from protection to simple chores. Good luck getting that kind of team-work from a cat. Home being invaded? Meh, did you get the wet catfood?

But if he chuckled a bit for the luckless creature, that was immediately replaced by a sense of…no, not guilt. Sorrow for a fellow animal whose life was cut untimely short? But whatever, this feeling was also fleeting.

But what caused this cat to bolt onto the street so abruptly? An experienced street-dweller would know to be careful. Perhaps too many drivers had slammed on their brakes, disturbing the items in the driver’s compartment and spilling hot coffee all over the driver’s lap. If the cat expected Mister Walker to do the same? Sorry, Whiskers, you guessed wrong.

He had several cats in the past. None were as good a companion as his dogs. Perhaps better than hamsters or birds. And about equal to the 6 foot snake he once had—although, admittedly, cats were far easier to feed. But even that was greeted with a condescending sneer.

While dogs and birds are expensive, cats usually pop up in want ads “Free to good home.” They breed quickly and often, and with particularly annoying estrus cycles.

Besides this was a dead cat and there was another death clouding his thoughts. But how to even think about Brooke—not her real name, which almost nobody knew—even Mister Walker, who’d chatted with her online since the 1990s. They shared a number of interests and social acquaintances., and she encouraged him to accept a position at Sandbern Industries.

She was both the most open and the most private person he ever met. Willing to go into past adventures but always keeping her present at an arm’s length. Maybe she knew enough of his “crash and burn” romantic tendencies and decided to run interference when a particular and most definite Ms. Wrong for Mister Walker was starting to go bad and this volatile divorcee was nearing total meltdown. Brooke had mentioned “fuck buddies,” always in the past tense and laughingly dismissed suspicions of present ones.

So she was probably leading him on—but so what? He’d given up thinking of her as a real possibility years earlier. An old “fuck buddy” reappeared in her life, wanting them to get back together—or else— sending her fleeing across eight state lines. There was disappointment, manifesting itself in the edge it gave to their conversations. He could be snarky and she could return the favor with snark of her own. But now she was gone and he missed her.

Our conscience is made up of many individual thoughts—some major and some minor. The life of a cat is hardly equal to that of a fellow human being. A talented, enticing woman who knew and approved of his eccentric tastes in women. One he once considered a “maybe.”

So Mister Walker ran over a cat. That fact did not weigh on his conscience nor did his opinion of the species improve. But he would remember it happening.