Requiem for a Skunk...

Biker Dude downshifted and pedaled up the last small hill just before the wastewater processing facility. He smelled a slight scent of sewage in the air along with that of freshly mowed grass. He passed a man with a fishing pole and tackle box going the other way. In the distance a train horn sounded. He sped up to cross the Metra tracks at the top of the hill and then coasted down the gradual slope on the other side.

He thought of that morning when he'd run over the skunk. Feeling the sickly thump thump of the tires over its soft, furry body. He said a short prayer. "God, Please let it have lived. I didn't want to hit it." He thought of the skunk's family, and how sad they would be if one of their members didn't return... and he hoped.

He slowed enough to where he could see individual bees buzzing among the purple flowers on thistles and the petals of coneflowers which lined both sides of the trail; the petals now spotted with brown from an entire summer of direct sunlight.

He kept braking until the last bend in the trail; slowing to a crawl where he would normally be taking advantage of gravity and flying down. He sniffed the air for skunk but couldn't smell anything except wildflowers. That was a good sign.

The boulder crushing factory was quiet. Its parking lot empty. No earth shaking, no rumble of heavy machinery, no sound like the ripping of rock into its elementary particles. Just silence and the slow click clickety click of the bicycle.

All day at work he'd been thinking about what to expect when he came around the turn and could look ahead to the spot where he'd hit the skunk. He'd said to himself, "Maybe I just ran over is tail. That's all. So it won't be able to spray anymore. A least it will still be alive."
At lunch time he set down the book he was reading, closed his eyes, and saw the whole scene again. The dark blob in the trail. No time to react. A striped tail going up, the feel of the wheels over something alive.

Then his creative brain took over and he imagined a posse of skunks and raccoons and squirrels all waiting for him. Revenge on their minds. Heading him off at the "pass", just around the bend where the alleged incident occurred. A chalk outline of where the body once lay. A crime scene investigating possum with a camera and magnifying glass scrutinizing the scene and collecting evidence into little bags held by his chipmunk assistants all scrambling back and forth to some kind of vehicle... his mind wandered.. what kind of vehicle could you create that chipmunks could pilot? He toyed with that image for a while and laughed at the silliness of it.

Then he imagined the skunk he'd run over, still alive, but hobbling around on crutches and bandaged head to foot standing in the trail as Biker Dude approached. A vigilante group hidden, like in Bonnie and Clyde, except this time a group of animals; poised to jump out from the sides of the trail in ambush. Armed with sticks and shards of broken bottles instead of machine guns.

He really wanted there to be nothing but an empty trail. To know it was not a fatal accident. But here he was around the bend, and ahead of him, in the middle of the trail, there was the skunk.

It lay on its side. Its mouth open in its last dying breath. Flies buzzed around and on its body.

Biker Dude stopped. He couldn't touch it, that wasn't very sanitary, especially after it laying there all day, but he wanted to at least get it off the trail into the brush. To a more dignified place than right out in the open where all could see.

He nudged his bike shoe under the skunk. Feeling its weight and stirring up a cloud of flies. Surprisingly, there was not very much skunk smell in the air. Just a trace. He flicked his shoe, much like a soccer player just lifting the ball in a controlled manner over the head of the keeper, and the skunk rolled into the weeds and bushes off to the side.

He stood there for a few seconds. Pondering the skunk's life and its tragic and surely premature ending. Sure, it was just a skunk. An animal that most of the world wished didn't exist. Yet Biker Dude felt for it. After all, he had not always been Biker Dude. He was once invisible. Shunned. An outcast and a loner.

A jogger came along the trail from the north. "Good job," he said, as he slowed down. "I was wondering when someone was going to get rid of that thing. Yuck."

Biker Dude looked at the man and shrugged. There was so much he could say. About the preciousness of life no matter what form. About how misunderstood skunks were. That they were actually very affectionate animals. He could also talk about how people do the same to each other as they do towards skunks. Shunning certain types or groups simply because they were different or didn't fit with their own definitions of acceptability.

But he knew he'd get nowhere. That the guy would just look at him like he was weird.

The guy passed by, giving Biker Dude a thumbs up kind of nod. Biker Dude nodded back.
He took one last look at the skunk off to the side. He thought to himself, "Well, if nobody else remembers you, I at least will. Sorry old friend."

He heard the train horn again, this time much closer. He heard the bells at the crossing behind him start to ring. He put his feet back on the pedals and continued down the trail toward home.