The First Thing I Ever Killed
By Sariah S. Wilson
First off, I wanted to announce that sabrina2u was randomly selected as the winner in last week’s Testaments contest. Please send me an email at sariah [at] sariahswilson.com with your mailing information so that I can get it out to you on Monday!
But back to my title - it happened 12 years ago.
I was home for the summer from BYU. I had taken my little brother and sister out to see the new Disney movie, “Pocahontas” (which is what I ended up doing my senior thesis on - the “true” story of Pocahontas because apparently scholars debate whether or not she actually saved John Smith’s life, if he had made it up to be dramatic, or if what she had done was some sort of ritual rather than an actual saving. My conclusion? It for sure happened, but we’ll never know if she defied her father and her people in trying to save him (which is entirely possible, particularly given her later behavior and total fascination with everything English) or if it was a way for a captive to be saved - much as it is in the scriptures - where the men save face if they decide not to kill someone because a woman asks them not to).
I liked the movie, and my younger siblings enjoyed it as well. On the way home, we discussed which parts were our favorites. We all particularly liked Meeko, the raccoon, and Flit, the hummingbird.
The major road to our house had been closed down for construction, so I was forced to go a back way on a very spooky street. It’s one of those old country roads that has a haunted bridge, where apparently there was some sort of fatal accident many years ago and if you go over it a certain time of night you can still hear the victims screaming. It creeps me out just typing that up, so you can imagine that it wasn’t my favorite place to drive. I always turned the music up louder before I got to that windy bridge. And there was nothing I hated more than driving over that bridge in the dark.
The road was also extremely narrow without any shoulders, so you had to keep an eye out for cars coming in the opposite direction because two cars couldn’t fit on the bridge at the same time.
Once I made sure that no other cars were coming, and just as I was mentally preparing myself to head over that bridge, a raccoon darted out into the road. There was no chance to stop or to swerve or to do anything to avoid it. I slammed on my brakes, but the raccoon didn’t move as I hoped it would. It watched me come at it, and then…I ran it over. With both sets of tires.
I probably should have gotten out and checked on the poor animal. But I was scared, it was late, and I was pretty sure that nothing that small would survive getting run over by something that big.
But I had run over Meeko. I kept thinking that I had just killed Pocahontas’s best friend.
I was shaken up for days. I don’t even know how I made it home that night. I had never accidentally killed an animal before, and it really bothered me. I had a hard time driving after that because I was so afraid it might happen again. This was not helped by the fact that we have a very slow moving animal clean-up department, and so on a daily basis I had to witness the evidence of what I had done.
Living in a semi-rural area as I do, unfortunately this sort of thing happens all the time. There are constantly hedgehogs and possums and raccoons and rabbits and squirrels and all sorts of other animals laid out all over the roads. I get sad every time I see the road kill. I always think of poor Meeko.
What about you? Have you ever run something over with your car?
First off, I wanted to announce that sabrina2u was randomly selected as the winner in last week’s Testaments contest. Please send me an email at sariah [at] sariahswilson.com with your mailing information so that I can get it out to you on Monday!
But back to my title - it happened 12 years ago.
I was home for the summer from BYU. I had taken my little brother and sister out to see the new Disney movie, “Pocahontas” (which is what I ended up doing my senior thesis on - the “true” story of Pocahontas because apparently scholars debate whether or not she actually saved John Smith’s life, if he had made it up to be dramatic, or if what she had done was some sort of ritual rather than an actual saving. My conclusion? It for sure happened, but we’ll never know if she defied her father and her people in trying to save him (which is entirely possible, particularly given her later behavior and total fascination with everything English) or if it was a way for a captive to be saved - much as it is in the scriptures - where the men save face if they decide not to kill someone because a woman asks them not to).
I liked the movie, and my younger siblings enjoyed it as well. On the way home, we discussed which parts were our favorites. We all particularly liked Meeko, the raccoon, and Flit, the hummingbird.
The major road to our house had been closed down for construction, so I was forced to go a back way on a very spooky street. It’s one of those old country roads that has a haunted bridge, where apparently there was some sort of fatal accident many years ago and if you go over it a certain time of night you can still hear the victims screaming. It creeps me out just typing that up, so you can imagine that it wasn’t my favorite place to drive. I always turned the music up louder before I got to that windy bridge. And there was nothing I hated more than driving over that bridge in the dark.
The road was also extremely narrow without any shoulders, so you had to keep an eye out for cars coming in the opposite direction because two cars couldn’t fit on the bridge at the same time.
Once I made sure that no other cars were coming, and just as I was mentally preparing myself to head over that bridge, a raccoon darted out into the road. There was no chance to stop or to swerve or to do anything to avoid it. I slammed on my brakes, but the raccoon didn’t move as I hoped it would. It watched me come at it, and then…I ran it over. With both sets of tires.
I probably should have gotten out and checked on the poor animal. But I was scared, it was late, and I was pretty sure that nothing that small would survive getting run over by something that big.
But I had run over Meeko. I kept thinking that I had just killed Pocahontas’s best friend.
I was shaken up for days. I don’t even know how I made it home that night. I had never accidentally killed an animal before, and it really bothered me. I had a hard time driving after that because I was so afraid it might happen again. This was not helped by the fact that we have a very slow moving animal clean-up department, and so on a daily basis I had to witness the evidence of what I had done.
Living in a semi-rural area as I do, unfortunately this sort of thing happens all the time. There are constantly hedgehogs and possums and raccoons and rabbits and squirrels and all sorts of other animals laid out all over the roads. I get sad every time I see the road kill. I always think of poor Meeko.
What about you? Have you ever run something over with your car?
Sariah Wilson — 4/28/2007 09:20:00 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
While I was still in high school one of our home teachers hit and killed our golden retriever. (It wasn't his fault; she darted out after a cat and there was no time for him to stop.)
Ever since whenever later hometeachers ask the obligatory "is there anything we can do for you" question, I've always wanted to say "yes, please kill our dog"... (except that I don't have a dog).
My husband once ran over a bunny! A cute, little bunny. (My family knows how we feel about bunnies in our house and they understand the level of trauma.)
The biggest problem was that he didn't actually kill it, just broke the bunny's leg. So, there was this poor, terrified, injured bunny trying it's darndest to get away, but because of the broken leg it could barely hop.
I left him with the injured bunny and drove to the closest gas station to ask for a box to catch the bunny. He tried to keep the bunny out of the road.
By the time I got back, the scared bunny had been smashed by a speeding semi.
Seriouly traumatic.
Once at girls camp one of the drivers was driving a 15 passangeer van and she ran over a big tortise. I was driving in the car behind and saw everything. My father loves turtles and collects them so it was awful!
Elizabeth- it wouldn't let me login.
I never have but that's one of my biggest driving fears. But even worse than that is the fear that I'll hit a child wandering in the road.
I'm neurotic, what can I say?
Two dogs (one of them my own), a deer, an owl, a cat, about half a dozen squirrels and a couple of birds. Welcome to the country...
A deer hit my dad last summer when we were driving up in the mountains. It was kinda funny because it was dark and I happened to look out my window and there was a huge deer running right beside our van, maybe two feet away. I was so shocked to see it that I didn't have time to warn my dad before it swerved into the side of the van. My dad quickly pulled over and tried to get out of the car to take a look but the deer had dented the door so badly it wouldn't open. I got my door opened and scrampled out of the van to see if the deer was alright. I guess it was okay since it was running off into the woods.
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