Desensitisation and a dead squirrel
February 5, 2009
I decided to push myself a little extra today and without giving myself time to think, i grabbed my MP3 player and headed out into the world, for a second walk of the day.
The walk was nothing special in and of itself, the same as the first of the day, around 35 minutes of brisk walking, designed to burn off fat and improve my general fitness level, including blood pressure, cholesterol and pulse, etc.
But, less than half way through the walk, i happened across the sight of a dead squirrel. At first i didn’t know what animal it was, i figured a squirrel because of where it was, on the road, across from a green, with trees, then i thought it looked a bit more like a rat, but upon closer inspection and rubber necking, i realised it was in fact a squirrel.
A rather cute squirrel it seemed, nice colour, very shiny and healthy coat, although not so cute while laying on the road, with a cold, dead stare in its eyes, and it’s guts swelling out of it’s split sides.
While i was rubber necking, to get a good look at the whole scene, i realised how limited the damage was, considering it’d clearly been run over by a car. The fact that a squirrel, even this one which looked like it had been fat, before it’s abrupt end, weighs about 1lb and a car weighs about a tonne, and the car would likely be travelling at around 20mph, on this particular road, would have lead me to believe the scene should be one of explosion.
But in actuality, there wasn’t much mess beyond maybe a few centimetres away from the body, with the guts just lazily hanging out of it’s gaping sides, no splatter, no explosion, all quite neat really, more like the scene of a creature cut down the sides with a hunting knife.
It was as i walked on, leaving behind the scene, that i realised just how desensitised i was to this sort of thing. Here you have a cute little squirrel, an animal i quite like, having been crushed by the wheel of a car, it’s life taken from it abruptly and harshly, and i really didn’t care.
I didn’t feel a single thing, other than my curiosity to see the damage and try and work out what animal it was.
