Muirreann

On his way to his last day of work, my husband texted me at 7 am, "There's a black cat in the road." I crawled out of bed and headed out. He was in front of a farmhouse, where another lay even closer, rotting beside the vulture that had died trying to feed.

It was Halloween night; people should have been driving carefully, watching for trick-or-treaters, but maybe he was just too fast to avoid. He was still warm and limp when my sister brought him to me. I set him upright in the fridge, wrapped in a blanket, hoping I'd wake up to an angry cat.

What are the chances of finding a black and a white cat on the same trip? A sweet queen and an ear-tipped boy. I wonder if they would have been friends.

I had to pick her up quickly; she was in the middle of the road, and traffic was coming towards me fast. I reached down, bare-handed, and held her, dangling guts and all, as my mom pulled onto a side road.

He looked like one of my first fosters, Happy. He'd be grown up now. I hope he's just that- happy. I wish this one could've been. He was so soft. His blood stains my pants.

He was covered in fire ants. Two invasive species on opposite ends of the spectrum. I watched his fur blowing in the wind of the traffic as we sat in the turn lane, waiting. He looked like my Daffodil, my Wintersweet. I'll hug them extra tight tonight.

He was about twenty feet from the road, a highway that has claimed many, lying beneath a prickly pear cactus. Had he been thrown? Or injured, he ran and collapsed there. Had it been instant? Or had he lain there, crying out for help that never came? These thoughts haunt me.

Tabbies are some of my favorite kinds of cats. I see them the most often. Common, but adoring.

It hurts seeing them in this state; barely recognizable.

I picked him up yesterday, in my town, in the exact spot I had picked up another a year prior. There's a small colony there in that neighborhood. As we drove through, slowly, we came upon two small kittens sleeping in the road, warming in the sun. Unaware of the danger.

My sister picked him up for me. She said there was a penny underneath him.

I asked, "Heads or tails?"

"Maggots." She answered.

The irony of finding a dead cat right in front of the animal hospital was not lost on me. He was still warm, and I stopped for a moment to look for signs of life. For anything.
He spent the rest of the day with me at the lake, wrapped in my jacket.

He was undamaged, there was no blood, no broken bones. It's as if he were just sleeping. Sleeping on the side of the road. He was gorgeous, and I loved him without even knowing him. I named him Leif.

Out of all the cats I have picked up, this one I had to resist hugging the hardest. His gentle face, soft, curled paws, short, textured fur, and plump belly. I know he had to be the sweetest.

I adore my husband more than words can say. He lets me put roadkill in his Eclipse, even when their smell is fowl, so that I can bring them home and show them the love and admiration they deserve.

As my sister and I drove near her, lying in the middle of a rural road, we both thought, "Poor squirrel." And then we realized at the same time. I picked her up and held her to the sunlight, staring into her hazzy eyes, hoping she might merely be asleep.

This one was frustrating. A collar, finally. But only a flea collar, no way to tell her people. And on the way to the shelter to have her scanned for a chip, I found a tiny, flattened kitten.

I wish I could say more about her. I wish I knew what she'd been like.

So many black cats. My favorite kinds, like miniature panthers made of velvet and moonlight.

The Georgia sun is brutal. I hope my touch could be a tender reminder that warmth can come without pain.

I don't know why he died. He was far up a hill from the road, just a few feet onto the asphalt at the very back of a Walmart, beyond the dumpsters, beyond where anyone would see him.

As we drove by, I thought for sure I had seen a collar. Something that marked him as claimed, something that could help me get him home. But no, only a scarlet streak across his pristine fur.

I can see it in my mind, the moment it happened. She'd been so close to reaching the other side, only for her hind end to be swept up and rolled over. Rolled like dough. She still had her milk teeth.

Smokey fur, glassy eyes; dusted with debris from countless tires.

Both from my town, two days apart. Mother and daughter, perhaps.

When one cat is hit, sometimes more than just her life is lost. This mother was pregnant with four, so close to feeling sunlight for the first time. The impact had mutilated them- all except one. A calico just like her mother, who had been pushed into her ribcage. Safe next to her heart.

The diversity of life lost to roadways is....sorrowful.

All of these in one day. A coyote that should have been running free, running with his mate; two dogs that should have been safe behind a fence; and a cat, who was once a proud and beautiful flame-point, who should have been ruling the house.

I found him up the road from a neighbor I was pet-sitting for. A neighbor who had outside cats. I waited anxiously to know if he belonged. He was laid to rest without a home.

I picked him up with my bare hands, his body like a bag of broken glass. He was so tiny. It isn't fair.