Death in Texas

The head was the only you could be sure, otherwise, the body lay peacefully, as if it were truly sunbathing. The incongruent shape of the cat's head made it all too clear the state in which that peaceful body lay. Death on the side of the road is common enough in Texas, and often grotesquely gory. Ranging from a streak of blood flecked with hair to mangled pieces of rotting meat, death on the side of the road is common enough.

The cat was all the more disturbing for it's serenity. The certainty of it's demise more distressing, on observation of it's restful state. But why these affectations of sadness and dismay? Surely the scene was not the most tragic, the state of the cat not the most egregious of the all the creatures found in mortal disarray on the blacktop. Yet, immediately after seeing the cat, I was stricken with a powerful sense of loss.

This observation came at the conclusion of another long day, starting before sunrise, highlighted by contract signings, medieval Catholicism, industrial tile, Byzantine rhetoric, the misshapen head of a cat, Swedish organizers, and the Member's Only jacket. That it should propel me to re-enter the word wide web is something to think about.