Malice

Perhaps I'm a softie, or perhaps I've just seen evidence of malice.  I think it's the latter, and specifically, I mean God's malice.

Let me back up and offer a little story, a sad one I'm afraid.  I live in an area that might be described as suburbia, and one of the highlights are the nearby green spaces.  There's lots of critters in that nearby space, and I have the good fortune of getting occasional visits.  Mice, rabbits, chipmunks, squirrels and various other species including many birds, great and small.  My favourite however is a member of the weasel family, and I've always thought of him/her as a little mink.

This little thing is frisky, and somewhat playful and survives year-around in an area near a meandering stream on an adjacent golf course.  In winter, you can see the loping belly tracks in the snow. Occasionally you'd see it bound across a wide space in it's familiar and ungainly run.  It was not an everyday sighting, but one which spoke to the small circle of life as this cute little predator wandered the nooks and crannies of the local environment. It always brought a smile to my face.

I saw him again recently, the snow had just receded, and the rivers were high after a challenging winter. He was flat on the roadway adjacent to the golf course, the victim of some motorist who perhaps didn't see him, or didn't swerve.

It saddened me tremendously and in the month or so since it happened, I've thought about this little creature a lot.  I get the whole circle of life thing, and would have been ok if a hawk or coyote had it's way with him.  But it was a hard, cold winter and I can't help but think it would have been tough for the little fellow.  Just when life starts to emerge from its frost covered sleep and the mink's life would starts to get a little easier, he gets taken out by a car - and cars aren't part of the environmental cycle.

Someone or something with a plan decided to play a cruel joke on this little thing, and it strikes me as a step or two beyond cruel.  It is malice and bullying and for the life of me I can't imagine the rationale or see the 'why'.  However I do recognize that I don't like whatever put this plan into motion, whether that's fate, karma or God.  Whatever it was - I wish they'd pick on someone their own size.