Gunga- The saddest sweet story or the sweetest sad story.....

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The other day I drove down from Memphis, TN to Jackson, Mississippi. I was on a literary journey to visit the home of the famous writer Eudora Welty. The road down there is Interstate 55. It is one long, straight, and incredibly boring highway of mostly black tar. I say mostly because in some stretches it is worn down to a Georgia red clay color with only a hint of its former blackness. The only visual distraction this time of year was field after field full of fluffy, white cotton ready for harvesting.

The speed limit is 70 and everyone pretty much goes closer to 80 especially the semis. The road is full of semis as it is a straight shot down to New Orleans. I was speeding along trying to get something decent on the radio besides classical music on the staticy NPR station. Pretty much the only other choices were country music stations where you can hear the latest market prices for cotton, soybeans, or hog bellies or five minute shows with titles like " Fishin' Fever" or continuing on the dial Christian stations where the talk is about the 'rapture', being saved, or urging people to vote for the state amendment stating that life begins at conception so even birth control should be banned.

I noticed most of the traffic ahead of me was slowing down a bit and moving to the left hand lane. I adjusted my speed and did the same thinking there might be an accident up ahead. But, no, there was a large deer who must have just been hit, She lay splayed on the road, her head lifted up, but her innards and entrails oozing blood on the already reddish highway. About 20 feet ahead of her was a small fawn sitting very still and looking at her. I kept looking in my rearview mirror to see if anyone stopped or hit the fawn. But no one did... at least not while I could see.

I realized I had tears in my eyes knowing that the mama was never coming back to her baby and I wondered how long the baby would sit there so still waiting for his/her mama to return.

So the sweetest sad story or the saddest sweet story- you decide.

Carolyn ( gunga)

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