This Shining Life

It is a filthy day in January. We are driving off the motorway in fierce rain and midwinter mist, and sadness is settling inside the car as my sister and I contemplate the coming reality of our other sister’s death. About 2 p.m. That nothing sort-of time when the morning is done, but the day, though darkening, is far from conclusion and comfort. And suddenly I see you. An incongruous pool of white on the water-blackened tarmac. Every passing headlight illuminating the terrifying stillness of your still living body in the centre of two lanes of streaming, speeding cars. I can’t compute what I’m seeing. I panic. I want to brake, but I can’t. And suddenly we are passing and I stare down in horror, and I see you. And you see me. Eyes bright amid all your broken-legged intelligence. A feather-wrought body never meant to be seen. And at this intersection of life and death, it is as though the windshield has splintered, and the freezing rain drenches our smug seclusion. I no longer see you through the safe detachment of a screen. I no longer see you as one of many billions. I see you…

An extract form my story ‘This Shining Life’, published by the Center for Humans and Nature digital press this month, and accessible in full here…https://humansandnature.org/this-shining-life/