Dead badger on the A605

Friday evening
A rushed dinner
Into the car, heading out of the city.
Hot, and the sunroofs meagre breeze doesn’t stop the sweat beading on my brow.
The discomfort is still better than the last month, where the heat has been in my brain.
Like an inferno fuelled by napalm.

The parkway network. Trees to look at whilst you sit in a queue.
My iPod plays a radio 4 comedy podcast. Sandy Toksvig makes jokes about being a lesbian at the Hay Festival.
The A605. Two places to overtake, then stuck behind a convoy of caravans, lorries, tractors and learner drivers.
The pressure of tiny budgets using up all my creativity have sapped my energy. Tired. So tired. The iPod plays Simon & Garfunkel ‘Drinking my vodka & lime. Look around...’
At the turn off to Wigsthorpe a dead badger at the side of the road. Peaceful. Serene. Eternally resting.
Jealousy raises its ugly head. When your jealous of a dead badger something is wrong.

The A14. The journey gathers pace as the convoy is overtaken. The iPod plays Ocean colour Scene which reminds me of a happier time. And how I drank to forget the endless to do list. And how I’ll drink tonight to forget work. And study. And things that I should have done.

The M6. Where 70 miles per hour leaves you behind. A song I don’t even recognise as I think about the leftover painkillers which I haven’t taken. That would be a step too far.
Cruising now.
Cruising along, leaving the stress and hassles behind.
Cruising, overtaking, cruising
BANG
The steering wheel explodes in a cloud of white dust as the car end’s it’s journey but my bodies carries on forward until the seatbelt does its job and the air is knocked out of my lungs.
I rest in the airbag as cars swerve around me.
I sleep
I wake
I forget the pain of work
It is replaced
The paramedic slides the needle into my arm
The morphine takes it all away

By the A605 maggots, flies and a crow destroy the badger that was so serene in death, clipped by a car, until nothing remains.