Roadkill - Cesar Badillo (Group A)

I found myself, one day, sitting on a bench. The sun was strong and the day was young, but the shadow from the neighboring tree guarded me from the most unpleasant heat. Comfortable and bored I pondered on the tribulations of the world. A hundred dead in the middle-east, I remember reading - murdered by a dictator’s brutal regime. A masses cry of protest silenced by the violence of the police, I remembered hearing. I contemplated these events and what they meant.

Horrible, I thought – to have the ideology of a few affect so deeply the life’s of many. What reason did these men have to so cruelly oppress the people they are meant to protect? After so many centuries of bitter strife and war, history did not seem to change or learn from its mistakes; tragedy only seemed to escalate with the improvement of tools we made to further cause calamity.

As the sun changed positions in the sky, its rays found ways to break through the cloak of leaves the tree provided. These projected spots of warmth along my face that mildly irritated me, but the wind started blowing and supplied me with a balance in temperature that made me stay where I was. After all if I moved I’d have to deal with the intensity of the sun until I found a better place to sit.

The state of contemplation I was in was abruptly broken by a most horrendous sight. A cat that was making its way across a street was struck by an incoming speeding car. The vehicle slightly rose as the animals fragile body was vacuumed under the wheels of a 2003 Chevrolet Suburban SUV. Its body burst under the weight of the car. His carcass was dragged a few feet along the street and its viscera crudely spread across the asphalt. Its gore painted the adjacent stalls selling goods and food along the side walk with crimson rorschach’s. The SUV, barely acknowledging its action drove off; leaving the violent painting to be appreciated by its unfortunate witnesses.

Unsure of what to do I stayed under the protection of my guardian tree and observed. As people crossed the busy street, they barely threw a glance at the fresh corpse below. They registered the once breathing cat to be there, but only so to move around and past it.

As the day grew old, the sun began to die – the heat that once overwhelmed the streets, began to fade. The scene in front of me began to feel more like picture, the carcass had been there for hours; barely moved. A miasma began to fill the streets and people increasingly began to dedicate more time to the unfortunate sight. The smell grew more pungent by the passing of the minutes and it became more difficult to ignore. Someone that had been working on a stall took it upon themselves to dispose of the rotting corpse and haphazardly picked up the bowels of the cat and sealed them on an opaque garbage bag.

I grew tired and sore. I stretched my limbs and prepared to depart from my once comfortable spot. I groaned as I stood and reached into my pocket to take out my headphones. I tuned into the radio and began to make my way home.

“This just in: 172 casualties due to a chemical attack in Syria”

[Sorry for the late post]