Poorly Folded Sweater

While descending along a twisting highway in the forest, I drove past some kind of furry animal someone had struck and killed with their automobile.  The animal lay just off the highway on an embankment of grass and gravel.   Not a small animal.  Not big either.

Likely a baby animal.  Maybe a deer.

The hapless animal looked like a heavy brown sweater someone had carelessly flung from their shoulders as they walked off in a fit of rage.  One sleeve bent off to the side at a wholly wrong angle.  The rest of the sweater lay folded poorly.  A heap of rumples.

But not a sweater.

For the rest of the day, the scene came back to me at unexpected times, leaving me uncomfortable.  The image of the crumpled thing fading in my rearview mirror repeating inside my head.

Such roadside reminders of demise have bothered me since childhood.  These are not public service announcements.  They are reality—all too common and grim.

For the whole day, I repeatedly shook free the sweater and flung it away from me.

—Mitchell Hegman