The first day I drove the car to work, feeling like I was in a Hummer, I pulled into the tree-lined street next to our office building. Suddenly, from the trees, a bird flew right in front of my car, turned, looked me right in the eye, gave me one of those "hey, what's up?" bird head tilts and then just sat there.
I tried to slam on the brakes but it was too late. I heard the small "thud". I cringed and tried to not start crying. I hit a cat once when I first started driving and saw it in the rear view mirror twitch and then lay still, a gruesome smear of blood in the brown snow on the road. I quickly turned around and returned to the site of the crime. As I got out of my car and walked towards the cat, I saw out of the corner of my eye a large woman in a housecoat standing on her porch.
I tried to say words but only sobs came out. I had killed, no, murdered this woman's cat.
She casually put on some snow boots, grabbed her snow shovel and waved me away.
"It's okay, honey, that stupid cat kept crossing that road. I told her this would happen but she never listened. It's my neighbor's cat. I'll tell her. Go on."
As I stumbled back to my car that my father insisted I buy because it had steel bumpers and would be safer for me and was now smeared with feline matter, I saw the woman slowly go out to the road, scoop up the cat and disappear towards the garage.
So, that is why I cry when I hit an animal. As I pulled up into a parking space at work, I began to feel angry. I had gotten this car to save the fucking planet. It was suppose to be like that commercial on tv where the bunnies and the birds and the deer were all animated and butterflies were flitting around the car and it made you feel like a Disney princess because you were saving their habitat.
No, my Disney moment had turned into a horror movie. Stupid, fucking bird.
I promptly told my office mate about the incident with a good work-up of rage at the car and the bird and the planet itself.
She listened while signing paperwork, waited until I was done and then casually looked up and said, "maybe the bird was just committing suicide."
I decided that was indeed the truth. It had suffered some loss like it's babies falling out of a tree and decided that not just any car would do, it would have to be done with an earth-friendly car driven by an eco-conscious driver. And because the car was so quiet, when it shut it's little bird eyes as I was driving towards it, it wouldn't know when the final moment would come. It would just end.
As I settled into my office chair, I realized that the look I had interpreted as a greeting from the bird that morning was indeed a silent "thank you".
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