Another excuse for encroaching and taking what was rightfully not ours.

I was involved in two different cases today.

1) A German Shepherd was reported running loose on a freeway. That to me is DISASTER MODE, WAR-FOOTING, CODE-RED.

As I sped down the motorway with the lights of my truck blaring, my heart skipped a beat at every black object I saw; a discarded trash bag, separated treads from tires, litter.

A part of me didn’t want to see this dog and a part of me figured that catching him is the best chance it has.

My heart is bi-polar by now.

Instead, I found this little Brown dog on the freeway; quashed beyond recognition. Once it got to the freeway, its little legs had no chance in front of the giant 16 wheelers delivering the fruits of development across the country.

A horrible, painful and merciless end to a life once cherished.

2) A citizen called about an Alligator in a pond by a cul-de-sac. Upon arrival I saw the citizens yard almost extending into a swamp. The builders of the subdivision had squeezed every last inch of habitable land from the swamp-animals.

He showed me two gators in the pond and said they were out on the banks earlier.

“Sure, sir. They were sun-bathing. That’s what cold-blooded mammals do.” I laid my palm out flat.

“But they can get my kids.” He puffed out his chest.

Did you not think of that when you bought the house, Einstien? “It’s their natural habitat, sir.” I waved to the swamp.

“Can’t you just get them and relocate them from here?” He tried to read my name off my badge.

“From the water? You want me to go in the–”

“—Can’t you.”

Yes if I were Tarzan, MAYBE.

 

But how are these two cases related, you might ask.

 

So as I drive back in the evening this is what I saw; A fresh coat of tar on the freeway. Before I could help it I had stopped the truck by the same small dog I’d seen this morning.

The tar-machine had sprayed tar over its battered body. A worked must’ve noticed it on the second or third coat and flung it against the divider on the freeway. Even the dead carcass of a small dog was tormented.

 

The development of a nation is determined by the quality of its roads and the number of animals that are buried in the concrete slabs and the tar.