All creatures great and small

When I was thirteen, my family lived in then-rural Kellyville. One morning my mother was driving me to school when a bird ran out onto the road and went under our car.

“Oh fuck,” Mum said, slowing the car and peering into the rearview mirror. “I think I hit it.”

I swiveled in my seat. Sure enough, a pigeon lay mangled on the road behind us. As I watched, it raised a bloody crushed wing and waved it in the air as if to say, heeeelp….

“Shit,” Mum groaned, “It’s still alive. I can’t just leave him there like that!”

“That bird looks like it’s in a lot of pain,” I observed. “It would be inhumane to simply drive away.”

Mum sighed. “You’re right. I have to do something.”

She reversed until we were behind the bird and squinted at it through the windscreen.

“Poor little fella,” Mum said, shaking her head, “I hate thinking of him hurting like that.”

She pushed the accelerator and we ran over it again.

“All fixed, darling!” Mum smiled, patting my knee reassuringly.