The Roadkill

We’ll continue to call it the Roadkill. How it got here in the waiting room is beyond anyone’s understanding but it’s the only one here that doesn’t understand it’s beyond saving. My mother is sitting opposite and with each passing hour has curled further into herself until she has become more brittle than the air around us. The Roadkill is blinking at us. It’s unable to speak as its throat has been severed halfway into its spinal cord.

When the surgeon sits down he doesn’t notice it. Four more hours on top of the original three of the bypass operation have passed and this is the third time he has come to speak to us. While the surgeon tells us about the two extra arteries he had to rip from my dad’s legs, the Roadkill pleads. It can’t cry because its tear ducts were twisted out of its skin when its cranium was crushed. It wants to be saved. I pray it doesn’t follow us home.

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