096: A dead squirrel

I have been cycling on my new Brompton to work. Well, from the train station to the hospital - but that still counts! I take a different route to and from the hospital. This is mainly influenced by the route's specific degree of incline. I'd rather go short and steep, as opposed to long but less steep - if this makes any sense.

Anyway, on one morning, whilst cycling up the normal steep hill I take, I spotted an unusual object of curiosity at the wedge found between the pavement and the road. It was not yet autumn, but there were auburn leaves on the street. Amidst the orangey chaos of colour was the carcass of a squirrel. It looked like its life came to a literal halt after taking a leap to far, one that landed it in front of incoming traffic. Its stomach was split in half, dried blood was on the road and flies had begun to circle its lifeless body. I wasn't its only curious onlooker, the child walking down the hill holding his school bag in one hand, had also pointed to it in disgust, saying "Whats that thing, mom?"

I swerved my bike away from it like a skateboarder avoiding an orange cone. I didn't want its fur or blood or guts on my beautiful new tyres, no way! The same child also had similar ideas - he took a few steps away from his linear route. It was as if there was an invisible no-tread zone circling at least 10 metres from the squirrel. After my split second encounter, I didn't think much of it.

However, with every passing day, I would observe the shrinking existence of the carcass. As it was on cement road, I hypothesised that its degradation process was just much slower than if it was on soil. From full but broken form, to furless meat, to bone, it was finally reduced to nothing more than fragments of specimen. After a week, one would not even be able to tell that something had died at that spot a few days earlier.

It made me reflect on death. How when a soul finally leaves its home, it will most likely become at best an object of taboo, and at worst an object of disgust. We prevent ourselves from associating or being in close contact with a lifeless body, unless that is your life's profession. Even as a doctor now when death is a commonality, there is a different feeling when we have to either certify a patient's death or when visiting the morgue. It may be rooted from the uncomfortable feeling of realisation that its fate will soon become your fate. But most times this realisation is blanketed with emotions of fear and disgust.

Ultimately, even the highest and most powerful of people, will become that dead squirrel on the road. In death, they will become mere objects to be avoided, before they are finally reduced to nothingness. And such is the (pun intended) cycle of life.