short: death

Eleven days after I asked my psychiatrist about the dead animals I found myself staring at my mother, silent in her casket. Those eleven days prior, Dr Furrow asked me if I had had any personal encounters with death, such as losing a close friend or relative. No, I told her, I've never lost a relative or good friend to death. Dr Furrow proceeded to tell me that adults who lived a youth free of death usually develop a strange curiosity about death, which is why my highway eyes seem glued to road kill.

Gazing at her frozen face I chewed my lips until they bled, and as I heard all those stories and saw all those sad people and accepted the realization that my mother was gone forever, I realized I was no longer curious about death. I still catch myself staring at mangled road kill, however.

xx