Something terrible happened the other day while taking a casual Sunday commute. I was driving on a through way past a golf course when I came upon a deep dip in the road. I slowly drove through it and as I was coming out of the dip I saw a mother duck and her ducklings waddling across the road just at the top of the rise. I slammed on my brakes but it was too late. As I rolled through, I prayed to God that I didn't run over any of them but I knew I wouldn't be that lucky. I looked in my rear view mirror and sure enough, I had flattened one of the ducklings and halfway flattened another one. My heart sank - I felt terrible. And there was nothing I could do at that point.
Not that I aim for them, but I've run over squirrels and possums many times and have gotten over the guilt within a mile or two. Not this time. I still feel guilty. So technically this means that I've committed one and a half counts of duckslaughter. I'm already going to hell, so it's not like this one incident is going to determine my fate. But it still sucks.
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2 comments:
Oh Tommy, this makes me sad
Such is life.
It is sadder because you saw them with their mother.
Many ducklings die in infancy, I had a group walk by my house almost every day, at the start there were six of them but every few days I would notice one missing and feel sadness.
Look on the bright side, now the mother has fewer ducklings to look after she can feed and protect them better and they will have a much higher chance of surviving. A few of the ducklings would have died anyway, its probably better to have happened now so that the others get more attention while they are still young.
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