The thing about roadkill is you can really see it. Like, yes, “the fox is beautiful and we’re sad it’s dead” but also “all foxes die, most of them slowly, painfully, and unappreciated, but this one died quickly and we get to see it!” But only if we seize the moment.
I make Danny pull over and I snap snap snap the moment. Lucky for us, this fox was really bloody. I snap pics of the shiny flies and silky buzzards feasting on this lucky meal. The buzzards’ rubbery red beaks zig across the blue sky and stitch this snowy roadside into a giant waving flag with ink splatters of flies and birds exploding from an apricot smudge of fox. So patriotic!
Unluckily for us (but lucky for the buzzards) scavenging birds taste yucky and, anyway, neither Danny nor I know a thing about plucking them. Which is distressingly on-the-grid of us, but we’ll learn. I don’t even think about eating the fox. Don’t even touch it. My hands are finger-licking clean.
I’m hungry. The mountains rise in stiff points of meringue. Or gingerbread yanked from the oven and broken into steaming chunks that melt powdered sugar into pasty goo.
I take my turn behind the wheel. Danny searches the glove box. Sweet cherry wafts from an empty bag of cough drops. Denali’s sprinkle of roadside diners waits up the winding highway. My stomach is already there. I press the gas to catch up.
“If only the mountains were whipped cream.” I lick my lips.
“Or wings drenched in dressing!” Danny answers, licking his.
I don’t kiss him; I’m driving. But he’s so cute! My heart tickles. Pale pink buds dot his juicy tongue. His sparkly eyes run me right off the road.
Luckily, I swerve into the mountain, not off it.
I haven’t killed anything, but I have blown out a tire. I snap pictures of hot ribboned rubber. No longer rolling on the road, our tire resembles rolls of road. The road itself rolls like a river, dipping and swelling where the permafrost has thawed, slithering around the mountain. Embracing it. I snap images as fast as I can because Danny’s already got his thumb out. Any second now he’ll catch a ride and this moment will end. I’ll miss it. But I won’t have missed it.
