Roadkill Revolt
by Rachel Lynn
part 1
Cold pavement. Intense pain, then no pain. Big snowflakes fell, coating his hair like a thin blanket. Boxes passed on his left and right. Boxes passed directly over him, frightening him.
Squirrel opened his eyes to see two larger golden-brown eyes staring right back at him. He wanted to scurry away but was too panicked to move a muscle.
“Don’t worry. I’m not hungry,” said Coyote. “I’m never hungry anymore. You can stand up. Just try it.”
“What about the boxes?” Squirrel said, trying not to stare at Coyote’s lower jaw, which hung loose from where it should connect to his snout.
“They can’t hurt you now,” Coyote said.
Squirrel stood on all four feet, then squatted on his haunches. He used his front paws to wipe blood from around his mouth. He turned his head from side to side to study his surroundings. Everything looked the same, yet he sensed that nothing was the same.
“You’re confused. We all are at first. I talked to Deer Father about it the other day. He’s the smartest spirit I know, and even he was confused,” says Coyote.
“Spirit?”
Coyote shook his head. “You don’t get it yet, do you? Look over your shoulder. What do you see?”
Squirrel looked back to see another squirrel lying on the road, blood coming from its mouth, too.
“That poor thing. A box must’ve gotten him.”
“That poor thing is you. A box got you.”
Squirrel scampered to where the other squirrel rested. Squirrel flicked his tail several times while he considered what he saw. A small reddish-brown body, flattened through the middle, with tire tracks in its hide.
“That’s me?”
“Sure is. The old shell. A fast box ran over you. Saw the whole thing.”
Squirrel cocked his head to one side, considering Coyote’s words. “I remember the fast boxes. Blue, red, silver, black. I thought I could make it over to the woods.”
“You were wrong, my little friend, but so was I. I got hit by a long, fast box. The Human didn’t even stop to see if I was okay.”
Squirrel gasped. “Did the human stop to see if I was okay?”
“’Fraid not.”
Squirrel began to chatter fast, but he could see that Coyote couldn’t understand him.
“Stop all that barking. C’mon. I’ll take you to the Spirit Creatures.” Coyote turned and trotted towards the side of the road.
Squirrel hesitated for only a minute. A shiny black box was coming extremely fast.
Monitoring from the grass by the road, Coyote called out, “I told you they can’t hurt you now,” but Squirrel wasn’t taking any chances. He followed Coyote as quickly as he could run.
When he joined Coyote, Squirrel said, “You know, I had a family.”
“Well, you don’t anymore. Except for the Spirit Creatures. We’re your family now.”
Coyote headed for the snowy woods. Desolate, Squirrel had no choice but to tag along.
They came upon an opening in the forest. Squirrel stopped to observe, but Coyote kept walking. Several animals were there, sitting in a circle, speaking in languages that Squirrel couldn’t understand.
Coyote must have noticed that he was alone because he turned to look at Squirrel. Giving a heavy sigh, he trotted back to Squirrel’s location.
“Are these the Spirit Creatures? What are they saying?” Squirrel asked.
“Yup. Your new family. When you’ve been here a little while, you’ll understand them better.”
“I don’t know if I want to...”
“Your choice,” Coyote said, resuming his saunter towards the circle.
Reluctant, Squirrel kept a respectable distance but soon followed.
When Coyote reached the circle, he threw his head back and howled. The Spirit Creatures responded in kind. Squirrel began chattering, mostly out of nervousness.
“Another victim of the boxes, eh?” said One-Legged Turkey, nodding his head towards Squirrel.
“Unfortunately. Humans are reckless. Reckless and fast,” Coyote answered.
“Some Humans beep their boxes,” said Baby Raccoon.
Squirrel noticed that Baby Raccoon had tire tracks across his back.
“Most don’t care,” said Skunk. “I got mine back, though. Got ’em with my spray. What a way to use your last-ever spray!”
The others laughed, each in their own Spirit Animal way, some simply smirking, some cackling, others yowling.
“If only I had a spray,” Squirrel lamented, looking around the circle at the faces of the Spirit Creatures. The group was enlarging. Rabbit joined them, as well as Baby Bear, Canada Goose, Hedgehog, Father Deer, and a Wise Owl. Squirrel could see that each animal had suffered some kind of severe injury. Rabbit couldn’t hop. Baby Bear was missing a front leg. Canada Goose had only a stub of one wing. Hedgehog was mangled, his spines crumpled.
Squirrel continued assessing the Spirit Animals. Father Deer had a large hole through the lower part of his body, near his shoulder. Even Wise Owl had a loose, broken wing, but Squirrel thought, At least it’s not missing altogether, like poor Canada Goose.
“Why do the Humans make the boxes go so fast?” Squirrel knew tears were welling in his eyes but tried to hide them.
“No one knows,” Rabbit said. “But it’s not only how fast the boxes go. Sometimes the Humans aren’t even looking at the road. Sometimes they carry a small black box in their hands. A light shoots out of it. Maybe the light blinds them so they don’t see us.”
“You give them the benefit of the doubt,” said Wise Owl. “They don’t see us because they don’t pay attention. They don’t care. We should do something about it.”
“What in their world can we possibly do about it?” Coyote asked. “We’re spirits.”
Father Deer spoke up, skepticism in his voice. “Wise Owl, do you care to lead us in deliberations?”
The Spirit Creatures pulled in close to hear what Wise Owl had to say. Squirrel drew in close, too.
“Our spirits can enter the bodies of the Living Creatures, right?” Wise Owl began.
The Spirit Creatures conceded that this was true.
“Perhaps it’s worth a try to enter the Living Creatures and use their bodies to cause some disruption to the Humans and their way of life.”
“I’m new here. How does one go about it?” said Squirrel.
While Wise Owl described the process to Squirrel, others talked among themselves, all except for Father Deer, who stood a few steps back from the circle. He seemed to be taking in the chatter, listening to the plans for how the Spirit Creatures might get back at the reckless Humans.
Finally, Father Deer stepped forward and snorted, pawing the ground to get everyone’s attention. “My friends, do you remember how you felt when you realized you were a Spirit and not a Living Creature? It was a shock, but we got used to the new life, and we wished our Living friends well. With all due respect to Wise Owl, do we really think revenge will change anything? I question our right to enter a Living Creature. Couldn’t they get hurt in the process?”
The Spirit Creatures considered this for a time. Squirrel listened to the back and forth, the pros and cons. The debate lasted only a few minutes.
“I’m with Wise Owl. It’s worth a try,” said Hedgehog.
“I’m in, too,” said Coyote.
Soon, all the Spirit Creatures were in agreement. Father Deer shook his head from side to side. “This will not end as you suppose. Please take care, all of you.” Father Deer bounded over an old log and into the forest.
Wise Owl rotated his head to watch Father Deer disappear into the depths of the woods. After a moment, he faced the others with round eyes. “Father Deer is right in his admonition to be careful, but if we can impact the Humans, make them think about their animal friends, our efforts might save many lives. Let’s meet back here in a week to talk about our progress and how we should proceed after that.”
The Spirit Creatures began to disperse. Coyote nudged Squirrel with his snout.
“Will you be all right?”
Squirrel paused before speaking. “It’s all too new, and I feel confused. I don’t know exactly how I can impact the Humans yet, but I will think about it and try to come up with something. I hope I can keep my family from being hurt by the boxes.”
“Good luck, little friend. I’ll see you in a week.”
Coyote and Squirrel went their separate ways.
* * *
A week raced by. The Spirit Creatures were due to report their progress to each other. Even Father Deer couldn’t help but be curious, and he was first to arrive at the meeting spot. Wise Owl was next to appear, and soon after, the other Spirit Creatures showed up.
When the circle was once again formed, Wise Owl spoke: “Who would like to start?”
The Spirit Creatures looked around, their faces betraying uncertainty.
“Speak up, one of you!” Wise Owl exhorted. “There is nothing to fear in sharing your success.”
Coyote stepped forward. “All right, I’ll go first. It took me a day or two to decide the best approach to changing the Humans. I had to think about what they cherish. Then it hit me: their pets. Humans love dogs and cats. So, I entered my brother, who’s always been more aggressive than I am. It was easy to make him terrorize cats and dogs in the Human territories. But mostly, the Humans started keeping the cats and dogs inside their caves.
“After a few days, I could tell that my brother was tired of running through the Human territories, finding little to eat, and often being shot at by a BB gun. At least that’s what the Humans called it. ‘Get the BB gun!’ they would shout. My brother got hit by one of those BBs, and it made him run away so fast I almost came flying out of him right then and there. I gave up at that point and voluntarily came out of my brother.”
“But did you have any success?” Wise Owl asked.
Coyote cocked his head to one side. After a moment, he said, “Well, when we scared the dogs, they pooped all over their Human’s back yard, so the Humans had a lot more work to do, cleaning up the excrement, though I don’t know why that’s such a big deal to them.”
Baby Raccoon giggled and stepped forward. “I got in a Human’s cave by entering another baby raccoon who fell out of his mother’s nest. His leg was a little messed up in the fall, but I helped him get into the cave, and truthfully, I did that so he didn’t get picked up by a hawk. With his bad leg, he was defenseless.
“But the best part is that the Humans couldn’t figure out where we were. We skittered all over the high part of the cave, and I could hear Humans talking about it. ‘Where’s that sound coming from? That’s driving me nuts at night. I can’t sleep.’
“We chewed on some wires while we were there. And we pooped in the Human cave a lot. But I could tell that the Living one needed to be with his mother. His leg got better, so I helped him go back outside to his mother’s tree. He climbed up that tree like nothing had ever happened to him.” Baby Raccoon smiled, seeming satisfied with his accomplishment.
Wise Owl sighed. “What about the Humans? Do you think they’ll make any changes because of what you did?”
Baby Raccoon used his paws to hide his eyes. “I don’t really think so.”
Canada Goose stepped forward. “Well, speaking of poop...”
“Oh no,” moaned Wise Owl.
“Ahem!” Canada Goose fluffed his wing and his stub. “Speaking of poop, I entered the lead goose of a flying V, and I managed to direct the gaggle over a group of Humans that was skating on my favorite pond, which is now frozen over. Sitting at the side of the pond was a Human in a red suit with white fur on it. He had a red hat on his head. I heard the small Humans calling him Santa Claus. They seemed happy to see him, so I thought he must be someone important.
“When our skein flew over the Santa Claus, we let loose with all the poop we had in us. You know us geese, it was quite a load, and the Santa Claus started jumping up and down, shaking his fist at us. We honked and honked to let the Humans know what we thought, and then we flew away.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask,” Wise Owl said. “Do you think the Humans will change because of what you did?”
“Well, no. But they honked back at us quite a bit. They made a funny kind of honking noise. They were holding their stomachs, bending over, slapping their knees because they were honking so hard, and sometimes tears even came out of their eyes.”
“Good grief,” Wise Owl said.
Baby Bear was anxious to share his story. “I went back to my mother’s den and entered her. I think she could tell it was me. She is normally asleep at this time of year, but I woke her up. She walked out of the den and went into the Human’s territory to find something to eat. I made her knock over some garbage cans, and she did get some good food, but the best part was that we found a Human jumping thing. It’s round, and when you get on it, it goes up and down. The small Humans play on them a lot. My mother’s claws tore holes in the jumping thing. And then she pooped on it.”
Wise Owl closed his eyes and shook his head slowly from side to side.
Squirrel now stepped forward. “Wise Owl, I did something different.”
“Thank the Nature King! Tell us about it, Squirrel.”
“I learned how to go into another squirrel, just like you all told me to do. While he was sleeping, I just whooshed into him. It was easy. I could hardly wait for him to wake up so I could get him to help us.”
“And exactly what did you make him do?” Hedgehog said.
“I got him to sit up high in the branches of a tree and chew off limbs and throw them down on the Humans’ territory. Lots of limbs. The limbs were all pretty little, but there were a lot of them. Hundreds.”
Wise Owl raised his good wing to his forehead in frustration. “Limbs. Limbs? How did that disrupt the Humans?”
Squirrel stepped back from the middle of the circle and looked at the ground. “Well, sir, a few times, we hit the Humans, and I guess we just made a mess for the Humans to clean up. They don’t like sticks in their yards. Or on top of their boxes.”
“No poop?”
“No, but I thought about it.”
Now, Father Deer began to laugh, making the hearty sound that only a multi-pronged buck can emit. When he laughed, Squirrel saw red liquid squirt out of the hole in his chest.
“I’m glad you find this so amusing,” Wise Owl sputtered.
“I told you this was not likely to end up the way you thought it would. I’m just glad no one got hurt. None of the Living Creatures were harmed, right?” Father Deer asked, looking at each member of the group. Everyone shook their heads, confirming that no Living Creatures were harmed in the making of the disruption.
“Wise Owl,” Father Deer said, “you are one of my longest friends in this Spirit world, and I mean you no disrespect. We’re all frustrated by the number of Living Creatures who end up as Spirit Creatures because of the Humans. But we’re simply not equipped to make them change. They have to want to change. They have to care.”
The Spirit Creatures looked around at each other.
“Well, it was worth a try,” Wise Owl said.
“Maybe we can try again after we think of better ideas,” Squirrel suggested.
“Good thinking,” Baby Racoon said. “We need to be more productive.”
“And not more productive of poop,” said Wise Owl. Baby Raccoon giggled again.
The circle began to break up.
“Until we meet again, friends,” cried Canada Goose. “I don’t know about you guys, but I have some sidewalks to attend to.”
* * *
Copyright © 2023 by Rachel Lynn
