Sihlfeldstrasse *Warning*: This post contains *gory details*.
Yesterday four of us were walking towards Bottega Berta along Sihlfeldstrasse (two lanes with tons of traffic). I noticed a black & white cat under the parked cars that seemed to shy away from people like us. As we approach, the cat leaps onto the road, cars come, a crunching sound, the car drives on, the cat tries to get up but obviously a lot of stuff is broken. The cat tries again, stronger now. And then the cat tries to jump. Does a sommersault. Starts flopping back and forth, leaping up to a foot into the air, like a puppet being yanked around by a crazy puppeteer. It’s a silent death dance we’re seeing. Marco stops the cars. At last the death throes have an end. The electric ghost is gone. The cat is dead. Marco takes the dead body and deposits it on the other side of the road.
The entire thing was so bizzarre I didn’t know what to think. Was the cat dead and the brain was just just sending a few last intoxicated signals? Why was there no sound? How long until the owner’s discovered that their cat had died? How long had the cat been in that family? Did the family have children? Would they be searching the neighbourhood? How easy it is to die. How frail everybody is. Imagine a child being caught by a car. How mercilessly the metal hammers roar down the road, their cold gaze catching all obstacles and marking them for certain death.
By the time I recovered it was all over.
#Life
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Yes, it was a gruesome, bloody death. If you are squeamish, don’t read on. It gets worse, but I’m making a point.
I’m certain the cat felt very little. It was bleeding heavily through its mouth and nose, enough to spray blood across the road and coat its fur (I had to wash my hands in a fountain, MacBeth style). I interpret this to mean that the bleeding came from its brain, and that its death was mostly painless. I prefer to think that, anyway.
Secondly, in New Zealand I hunt rabbits. I use a .22 calibre rifle (which is small, but big enough to punch a hole through). Ideally, you hit a rabbit in the head. It’s the most painless death you can achieve, and it jumps and somersaults about bleeding through the mouth and nose, just like the cat did. I am certain the cat felt very little. I neglected to mention this on Sunday night as it was inappropriate.
– Marco 2008-01-28 23:48 UTC
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The violent death of animals by our transportation systems stirs similar emotions and thoughts in me.
The last comment reminds me of the debate about the guillotine, and the myth of Lavoisier conducting an experiment about brain activity during his own execution during the French Revolution.
– AaronHawley 2008-01-29 04:25 UTC
