Playing Possum

One night a few weeks ago my ride home had an unexpected highlight: fresh possum-variety roadkill smack in the middle of the bike lane. I was running only my front flasher, which doesn’t do a great job of illumination, but I know that bike lane like the back of my hand, and it doesn’t generally include deceased wildlife. This newly dead rodent of unusual size lay bloated right where my front tire likes to be. I managed to see the mess and swerve to avoid catastrophe. Which would have been what, exactly? A weird sloppy sound and sudden slip accompanied by a slight whiff of death?

It took a couple days before the possum had been run over enough times to be considered flattish. At this point I rode over it, because it didn’t seem like there was much left for my tire to sink into. It was a weird lumpy bumpy feeling, but posed no danger. It did, however, make me feel like I’d done something wrong. That possum was, until quite recently, a living creature, and it sort of seemed disrespectful to run right over it, all willy nilly. And there was a smaller, satellite lump that may or may not have been possum offspring. So the idea that I had just ridden over someone’s mother...well...it was disconcerting.

The rest of that week I avoided riding across the possum. I would dutifully swerve to the right of it while greeting it with a “Hey there possum.”

This week I am feeling less inclined to avoid it. It’s really flat now, mostly dry, and no longer has easily recognizable features. It’s interesting to watch something go from looking like this:

To looking like this:

And every night on the ride home I get to ask myself “Robbie, do you want to ride around the possum or straight through it,” and practice cultivating spontaneity. At least until the next big rainstorm washes that possum away.