Playing Dead?
You coming over?
You glance down at the message on your phone. It’s Cloudy Kicks—while you’re not officially a couple yet, you’re really close.
Yeah, I just have to finish up here. You tap the send button and don’t even bother setting the phone down—you can already see the little ellipses indicating she’s writing.
Better hurry, the show starts in fifteen minutes.
Fifteen minutes is enough time. You grab your backpack and swing your locker shut, jiggling the latch so it falls into place—like everything here, it’s a little beyond its prime.
You fast-walk out the doors and into the parking lot. Your car is there, waiting for you. It’s not much, but it’s a decent enough first car. Reliable, only minor dents and scrapes, and it’s got a good radio.
The horn chirps and the lights flash as you hit the button, and a moment later, you’re speeding out of the parking lot.
Not too fast. Fifteen minutes is plenty of time to get to her house, and it’s not worth taking risks to get there quicker. Not major risks, anyway—you cut diagonally towards the exit and don’t come to a complete stop as you turn onto the street, but you do use your turn signal.
While waiting for a traffic light, you have time to type out a quick message. On my way, be there soon.
South of town, things open up. It’s always struck you as strange how quickly the land turns from urban to rural—one side of the road has housing developments, and the other has fields of corn and wheat.
It’s several miles to your next turn, and there’s not much traffic at all. Sometimes in the morning and afternoon, it’s busy, but later in the evening not many people use it.
Besides the road sign, a neon-yellow posterboard advertises a barn sale further down the road. How many drivers are enticed by those? It can’t be none, or nobody would do it.
Your phone chirps as you turn, and you glance over just long enough to see it’s a message from Cloudy. It’s not safe to open the app and read it while you’re driving, and your car doesn't have a fancy enough radio to interface with your cell phone.
That’s okay, your next message to her is going to be ‘I’ve arrived’ anyway.
You check the clock out of habit. Five more minutes to get to her house and park, and then you can forget all the stresses of the day, just sit on the couch in the rec room, watch TV and eat popcorn. Snuggle.
Up ahead, you see something in the road. Roadkill—common enough around here, and nobody bothers to pick it up. Near the center of your lane, you won’t have to swerve to avoid it.
Something small. As you get closer, you can see it’s an opossum.
And you also see it move.
Just a trick of the light. There are trees lining the road, and the sunlight dapples the road as it shines through the leaves; add in some clouds and maybe a gust of wind.
You pass over it and look back in your rearview mirror. You know what you saw. It moved. It’s obviously hurt, but it’s not dead.
You glance at the clock, back at your mirror, and bring the car to a stop, only remembering at the last second that you should stop on the shoulder, not the middle of the road.
The steering wheel jerks as the car drops off the pavement, and the cloud of dust overtakes you, briefly shrouding the car.
It’s a wild animal, even if it’s not dead now it will be soon, and what can I do about it anyway? Run it over with my car to end its suffering? That’s a terrible idea.
Cloudy Kicks is expecting you, she’s probably already started the popcorn, and you’re at the point in your relationship where you can’t afford to screw up. You said you’d be there and you aim to be.
[CHOICE]
>go back, pick it up, and take it to the vet. (hero)
>continue on to Cloudy’s house and don’t mention it (villain)
[CHOICE A: Hero]
You can’t just leave it there. You pick up your cell phone and tap out a quick message. Hey, what’s the name of that vet you use?
You turn on your hazard lights and back along the shoulder, your mind already going a hundred miles an hour. There’s some empty boxes in the trunk that you’d never cleaned out after the last shopping trip, and you can sacrifice your gym shirt if it’s bleeding—which you think it was.
Doctor Fauna, why?
Hurt possum a couple miles up from your house.
Got it—guard it, I’ll be right there.
Guard it—you can do that.
You hit the brakes as one wheel starts to slip into the drainage ditch. Backing up using your mirrors isn’t all that easy, and there’s a good chance you’d run it over by mistake if you backed all the way up. A three-point turn, which turns into a ten-point turn, gets your car facing the other way and back on the shoulder.
You don’t really want to get a close look at an injured possum, but you’ve made your choice and have to follow through. You pull up alongside, open your trunk, grab out a cardboard box, and walk across the road.
It’s very much still alive; it lifts its head and hisses at you, and you can see it struggling to get to its feet. There’s some blood but not a lot—it must have just gotten glanced by whatever hit it.
You’re still trying to figure out the best way to lift up an injured opossum when you hear the crunch of tires on gravel, and a familiar looking farm truck comes to a stop behind your car. Cloudy Kicks hops out and comes running over to you.
“Poor little guy,” she says. “You got a box, that’s good Grab a handful of straw out of the back of the truck, we’ll put that down.”
“I’ve got an old t-shirt, too.”
“Good.”
•••
The two of you ride together to Dr. Fauna’s. You’re riding shotgun, the box (and possum) in your lap. You can feel it moving around inside, which is hopefully a good sign.
Both of you are in good hands—you’re still not entirely confident in your driving abilities, but Cloudy Kicks is driving the farm truck like a F1 driver, banging through the gears like an old pro. She told you she’d been driving farm equipment since she was tall enough to reach the pedals.
You were expecting a hospital or some modern brick building; instead, she pulls into a country driveway. Feral cats watch you, and dogs start barking.
Cloudy Kicks leads; she’s been here before. A sign on a side door says ‘Clinic Entrance,’ and you push it open. Inside is a typical-looking waiting area. The magazines are animal-themed, the TV’s playing a nature show, and it smells like every doctor’s office you’ve ever been in along with a serious undertone of dog.
You set the box down on the front counter and the receptionist takes one look inside, then scurres back to get the doctor, who assures you that there’s a good prognosis. The injuries don’t look too serious, although it certainly would have starved to death or been eaten by a predator if you’d just left it out in the wild.
On your way out the door, Cloudy Kicks takes you hand.
“Sorry we missed the movie,” you tell her.
“It’s fine.” She leans over and kisses you on the cheek.
[CHOICE B: Villain]
With one last look in the mirror, you shift your car back into gear and pull up off the shoulder. It’s not too long before it disappears behind you, although it doesn’t leave your mind.
You slow and turn into her driveway, park your car next to the big diesel farm truck she usually drives—it’s thirty years old, covered in dents and mud and rust and yet somehow suits her perfectly.
I’m here, you tap into your phone, although it really isn’t necessary. You can hear her dog barking inside and she opens the door before you have time to knock.
The dog sniffs at you suspiciously, then remembers that he knows you and licks your hand.
“Come on in,” she says. “Go on and make yourself comfortable, I’ll grab the popcorn and root beer and be right down.”
•••
It should have been a great evening, but you kept thinking of that opossum. Is it still in the road? Did it make it back into the woods?
On your way back home, you slow down as you pass by where it was. It’s gone.
Is that a good thing or a bad thing?