I forget exactly how old I was, probably around 13. My family had a black mutt of a dog named "Kelly" who lived in our backyard. We loved this dog and took good care of her. At night, though, she would often bark at the darkness for no apparent reason, so we would always let her into the garage for the night. That is where her bed was anyways. One night when my parents were out, I went and opened the door, but Kelly just wouldn't stop barking. She was very aggressive and sounded a bit in distress. She was barking at an opossum. The opossum had backed itself up against the fence. I didn't want to try to separate them myself or get in the middle of their dispute. Not knowing exactly what to do, I grabbed a shovel to defend myself. Using the shovel I tried my best to get between Kelly and the beast. Once in between them, I guess the adrenaline got to me, I went out of control and hit the opossum as hard as I could with the shovel. But not just once, maybe 4 or 5 times, I honestly don't know how many times I hit that poor thing. The opossum had stopped moving. I picked it up with the shovel and threw it over the fence and took Kelly inside.
I felt terrible. What had I done to this poor opossum. It didn't do anything wrong. It was just in the wrong place at the wrong time I guess. I felt so disgusting that I took a shower. It was one of those showers where you just stand there and think. It was probably one of the longest showers I have ever taken. Even after the shower, I still felt like shit. I finally was able to fall asleep.
The next morning, the opossum incident was still all I could think about. Did I kill the animal? Curious, mostly for peace of mind, I went behind my fence to see if the opossum was still there. It wasn't. That made me feel better. Looking back, I should have just tried to get Kelly under control and leave the poor scared opossum to itself.
That is probably the worst thing I have ever done.
No comments:
Post a Comment