Some thoughts from the side of the road...

Sometimes something happens to you that makes you stop in your in your habitual, humdrum tracks and forces you to think harder about that something than you normally would. It doesn’t have to seem like much. It doesn’t have to look like much. I had one of these episodes recently. Nothing much, just some road-kill I came across, just some road-kill, it happens all the time, just some road-kill that had me standing by the side of a busy road for full ten minutes, mourning the creatures that lay dead in the road beside me. Cars passed, people looked, I stood – and thought.
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Autumn has arrived, and with the coming of the winds, the Change begins.

By late October the Change will be strong - roughly fashioned shards of experience will blow into cities, towns, and villages - even tiny settlements will be found out, nowhere escapes. An animal will be run over by a car, a young woman will lose her engagement ring, cancer will be diagnosed, and some father will hit his child in anger. Prayers will go unanswered, leaves will fall rotten in gardens and graveyards, big and small importances will crash in on the suspecting and unsuspecting alike.

The Change will have arrived delivering its ‘what’.

The ‘what’ that the Change blows in depends on many things – its strength and direction, where it comes from, who it wants, what it needs, what it’s lost, what it’s hungry for - and of course who, and which, and what, are caught up in it at the time. There is no choice in the Change. Both the innocent and old are found, young and male, good and black, white and guilty, bad and female. It is all chance.

Sometimes it blows in the bad things, they stop to rest for a while, have a drink or two, find love, spread hate, feed, sneer, take what they need - and leave as the Change catches them up and blows them to that next and other place.

I wonder what it’s blowing our way?
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I was driving along the road when out of the corner of my eye I saw the lump of brown. I was past it in an instant, but it connected with my mind in that tiny flash - connected so firmly that I had to turn the car around, drive the half mile back along the road, stop the car and get out to look - look for evidence of the Change.

I found it. The Change was there, milk-eyed and looking up at me.

There were two of them. An adult, a full two feet long, and a youngster. So close together, a few inches away from connecting, broken and bloodied and dead. I’d never seen these in the wild before, only in pictures. Mink - two mink, escaped or released; the youngster maybe wild-born, both dead - thrown carelessly and uncared for to the side of the road.

How beautiful they were in death - sleek and brown despite their own destruction – and still the ‘much more in life’ remaining for me to see. Not long dead then – cold but whole.

I stood over them looking down, and for a moment I could see them in the road, crossing - the moon shining on their breeze-blown fur – so prized for the making of coats and stoles. Mother and son, returning to home from hunting, fed and sleepy, not either one alert, playful and careless - and with the turn of the wind - caught up by the Change.

I see the mother go first. Mown down and crumpled in the speeding headlights, dragging her broken back to the verge, her young one - frantic with squeals - nipping her neck to spur her on. No use. And he, a few moments, hours later, still tending his motionless mother. Just a glancing blow - just enough to bring the Change almost without a mark.

How sad I feel as I stand examining their crushed bodies; ‘minds-eyeing’ their slaughter. I feel for these creatures, I feel them as creatures, one moment bright and visceral, the next dumb with death. How like them I am, how like me are they, how alike are all living things.

I feel the Change brush me by and speak; ‘The Change is here for all to see. The Change is with them. The change will be.’ And I understand - all life is waiting for the Change, I am waiting for the Change, we are waiting for the Change.

I wonder when the Change will blow our way?