squirrel

for about a year now, i have been making cell phone pictures of roadkill i have found on my ride to campus, specifically on the bike path, from above, with the tips of my feet in the frame. i think it is absurd how many animals are run over by bicycles on the path. it just seems silly to me. how do you run over a pigeon or a rat on your BICYCLE?!
thursday i rode past a furry squirrel tail, pulled off to the side of the path, walked back, &snapped a picture. then i realized the squirrel was still breathing, like little pops every five seconds.

for some reason i felt conflicted. i called nathaniel about a thousand times (his phone has been broken for weeks) before he answered &advised me not to pick it up because it might bite me, but drag it off the path. i sat with it for a long time while runners ran right by &bicyclists zoomed past, sometimes running over its tail. its eye socket was so swollen, i think its eye was missing, &blood was dripping from its nose. it was so, so sad to look at. so i dragged it off the path by its little tail &it didn't fight at all, just twitched its little ear (i carry all kinds &sizes of bags in my backpack for occasions like this). i tried to cover it up with some long blades of grass so it could at least die in some peace. on the ride back after class i stopped to check on it. it was dead.
it was such a strange &surreal experience. in all the roadkill i have photographed in all my years of photographing, i have never experienced anything like this. i haven't really been able to stop thinking about it.

i do have some exciting news &things to post from SPE last weekend. i will do that soon, after this paper-writing extravaganza dies down.