Monday, November 17, 2008
Distraction
Sunlight glaring through the windscreen, the mum rattling on about the traumas of an acquaintance's life in the passenger seat. A lone pigeon on the opposite side of the road stands dejectedly in front of an oncoming vehicle, too jaded to care.
The oncoming car does not simply kill the pigeon: it destroys it. Something like a flurry of snow scatters over the road. Feathers everywhere. Who would have thought the old bird had so many feathers?
I have seen birth, I think, as I swing the car left and head up Spencer Avenue, past number 57, the house where I saw birth; and now I have seen death.
The mother, unaware that a life has winked out of existence within the last few seconds, is still on about what's-her-name.
"Sorry, Mum- you may need to rewind a bit. I was with you up to the point where you said her feller was shoeing her around, then I got distracted by the sunlight."
The oncoming car does not simply kill the pigeon: it destroys it. Something like a flurry of snow scatters over the road. Feathers everywhere. Who would have thought the old bird had so many feathers?
I have seen birth, I think, as I swing the car left and head up Spencer Avenue, past number 57, the house where I saw birth; and now I have seen death.
The mother, unaware that a life has winked out of existence within the last few seconds, is still on about what's-her-name.
"Sorry, Mum- you may need to rewind a bit. I was with you up to the point where you said her feller was shoeing her around, then I got distracted by the sunlight."
