Chapter 59: 'Road Kill'

Izo stumbled headlong on to the blacktop, falling to his hands and knees. Just about having run out of steam and reasons. How long had he been running?

The simple thought, was enough to almost enough to send him into spasms of laughter, almost. If he'd had, the 'wind' currently to spare. Part of him, 'almost' wanting the demon to find him!

"Make this be over!" He wailed to the uncaring asphalt beneath.He couldn't really remember when or where it had all gone wrong. Utterly spent, he finally stopped resisting 'the pull', allowing himself to lay down, right on the edge of the blacktop. There he stayed, considering, uncaring of the consequences.

There wasn't a specific date, he could draw to mind when he'd taken that first 'bad' step. Though it would be so easy to just blame it all on Sato. 'yeah', too damn easy!

Laying cheek upon the oddly comforting smoothness of the asphalt, closing his eyes he wondered. Perhaps it would be fitting if some speeding motorist unexpectedly put him out of his misery! He didn't know how long he continued that way having lost all sense of time. Before finally looking up, and by the grace of starlight saw the rabbit.

It lay broken, towards the middle, barely recognizable. It's 'guts' smashed in all directions forming the lumped center of a series of radiating reddish brown spokes of it's own blood. A macabre carnal compass-rose there in the roadway. A decreasingly faint zig-zag pattern shooting away hinted 'the run in' was with a large truck.

But as Izo stared at the carcass a kind of clarity seemed to envelop him ... This was some kind of sign! A warning! Here he was, running scared just like a rabbit! And just like the one less than five good feet from him he was headed for a similar fate! And for the first time in a long while he believed 'that' was a bad thing.

Was it too late?

"No more!" He muttered, perversely regarding the lifeless eyes and remaining floppy splayed ear, the only things allowing him to identify the remains at all. No more lying, just to lie! No more stealing just to 'fit in' with individuals, who weren't friends, from people who hadn't done him any wrong! With great effort, Izo hauled himself to his feet, suddenly, somehow reborn in that instant. He glanced at the woods behind him, no longer quite so frightened.

If he was to die this night, he wanted to meet death on his feet. Not crawling on the asphalt! Like the loser he no longer wanted to be. Looking again at the rabbit Izo knew he didn't want to end up that way. Running scared all his life! Only to wind up laying somewhere anonymously dead, with no one to care or to weep.

"Oregotto!" He said, bowing to the tiny corpse. Hoping for once somehow his Mother could see him from beyond the veil. And his father? Izo hoped that was also not too late he had much to make amends for!

With a final respectful glance towards the rabbit, he then started walking. Knowing he certainly had a long way to go but that the darkened road ahead of him was far brighter than the one he'd left behind.