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killed a squirrel with my bike

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

I started the day with running down a squirrel with my bike. I'd gone to the grocery store to ask if I might have left a chain for my bike lock there on the weekend. I left empty-handed, and decided to get downtown by cutting through a park on my way to the Martin Goodman trail that winds along the lakeshore. I'd just entered the park when four or five squirrels darted in front of my bike. I wasn't moving to quickly, but the largest of the squirrels dove right into my front wheel.

With a nasty thump, I struck it down, sending it flying. I circled back, and as the smaller squirrels gathered, watched the thing flounder and thrash and burble up blood in bubbles through its nose and mouth.

A witness agreed that there wasn't much I could do. So, I apologized to the mama and her suddenly orphaned children, and made my way through the park. I spotted a park worker and tried to tell him about it, but he just kept saying, "Yeah?" to whatever I said, so I gave that up as well and carried on. Squirrel killer. Orphan maker.