Yesterday I was walking from Bart to work, and waiting for the light to change at the corner of Grove and Larkin, across from the library. There was some junk in the intersection, and as I stood there not really paying attention, two seagulls swooped down to eat the garbage on the street, and then a car zoomed through the intersection to make the yellow light. I saw the seagulls look up and see the car, it happened so fast, and then the car took out both gulls. One was smashed dead like that. The other one flopped around for a little while. This other woman and I just stared at each other. Omg.
When I walked back past there that afternoon, the first seagull was practically a memory,basically just some feathers in the street. There was no sign of the second one. It’d be nice to think it collected itself and flew away. But I fear that the thuggish guys who hang out in front of the library released their pit bulls, and the dogs killed the second gull.
It was one of the weirdest things I’ve seen lately – it looked exactly like it looks in a movie when someone gets hit by a car. The car itself never slowed, and I can hardly blame them, since who even knew you could hit a bird with a car?
So RIP seagull, and probably other seagull. It’s the circle of life. Except your life didn’t go to something noble like the food chain, unless the pit bull thing happened. I suspect your bodies were just swept up by a street cleaner.
The Cameraphone Diaries 