Crossing Over

 I don't know if it was someone's pet or just a stray. Just like a year ago, when I rode past the lifeless body of a cat who had apparently made an ill-fated attempt to cross the street, I stopped. 

As I did a year ago, I moved to the sidewalk and got off my bike. Then I waited for the traffic to pass before I went out and made the worst possible rescue of a black and white cat that was not as lucky as I have been all these years on that hundred yards of High Street. It is the busiest stretch of my commute, and I try not to experience it too often during the rush of the day. The nocturnal amble this feline took didn't seem to keep him safe, and it is quite possible that whatever or whomever struck him was blissfully unaware of the collision. Radio on, thinking about the coming day, on their way to or from work.

Or simply out for a drive that ended tragically for a cat. 

I picked up the carcass and laid it on the sidewalk, only a few feet from where the end came. I thought of some words and was suddenly thrust into a world that doesn't always stop when someone dies. 

I thought of Alex Pretti, and how a nation stopped for him when he was struck down. I wondered, not for the first time, how many others had been abused, beaten, tortured and killed when there wasn't a sea of cell phones tracking the tragedies in real time. I thought of Renee Good whose last words to the officer who seconds later ended up shooting her three times in the head: “That's fine, dude. I'm not mad at you."

I'm not guessing my little Oreo Kitty friend was harboring any ill will toward the driver of the car or van or truck that stopped him in his tracks. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He used up one of his nine lives trying to get across the street. I didn't want whoever loved this cat to find an ugly mess where their pet had been. Just like I wish that those who knew and loved Alex and Renee want to believe someone or something will help them get to the place where they belong. 

Wherever that is.