A Prickly Saga

Yesterday a rather singular occurence did something very singular--it occurred! What's more, this singular occurence has never happened that I can recall in all of Fairwood history (but since I can only recall about fifteen years of it, I realize that my memory is somewhat limited). Forgive me if you've already heard about it, but I cannot resist the urge to tell it again. Now are you curious?

It all started with my little childhood phobias of being outside alone in the dark. In case you don't know, our house has a bit of woods surrounding it, and a road/driveway goes by and over the hill and down to the more populated--and therefore more well lighted--areas of Fairwood. Well, naturally I have had to make this trek millions of times, and as can be expected, necessity forces me to take it when darkness pervades our side of the globe. Very often there are places at times where you can't even see the ground you walk upon, let alone your feet, and a big field stretches out on one side of this dark pathway, and you never know what could be watching you, or darting silently toward your unaware person until it's practically on top of you. Hmm, taking this walk is one thing to do it when your twenty-seven, and quite another thing to do when you're just seven. Since I think every kid has been afraid of the dark at some time or other, I of course went through my little qualms. A flashlight sometimes assisted me, but most of the time I would brave the dark unaided, all alone except for the comforting sound of my own voice as I fiercely sang to not only comfort myself but also to hopefully dissuade any intruders from attacking me (and I could never decide if they would flee just because I was making noise, or because I sounded dreadful). What I would like to observe as a sidenote is that Laura, who had the same anxiety as me, decided not to sing but to run, and I've noticed how much she loves to run and how much I love to sing. Peculiar, is it not?

Oddly enough, some people may be surprised to note that I wasn't afraid of being abducted or anything. In fact, the only humans I feared in the dark were Craig and Clyde and only because they were known to try to scare me (luckily I noticed Craig's creeping shadow as I approached the lamp post at the end of our driveway, so I was spared from experiencing the undesirable alarm that my wicked brother had designed for me). The things I feared were less wild in nature: mountain lions (one was spotted at Fairwood last summer), bobcats (we've heard them scream in the woods), bears (our bird feeders have been raided by them), wolves (which I don't even think we have any of), and. . . . stepping on porcupines. Sometimes I was even hesitant to eating a cookie on the way home from the Main House, in case a ferocious cat would smell it and come to attack me so that he could devour it himself and then have me for dessert.

One day however, my dad told me earnestly that pretty much all of the animals here in the woods are scared of me. This pleased me, in a fashion, to know that most likely the animal will race headlong away as soon it heard me coming, and basically I have nothing to fear except fear itself. So I think I can say that from then on I was cured of my phobia of the dark, at least along that road, and it never has really bothered me since. But I must admit that I am still wary of things I may see or need to make my distance from. Of course it still has occurred to me that maybe someday a suddenly bloodthirsty mountain lion will maul me, but it is comforting not only to realize that I'm not going to die unless God wants me to, but also such notions are absurd. So to this day the closest I've come to being mauled is when I reached the end of our driveway one time and then I heard something take a few steps in the woods. I don't need to say that I didn't think twice about running all the way to our porch.

My dad's "talk," however, didn't immediately relieve me of my worry of stepping on a porcupine. As I said earlier, there are times when you can't even see the ground, and stepping on a porcupine is probably the most drastic I thing I could think of as a result. However, it wasn't long before I convinced myself absolutely that the very idea of stepping on a porcupine was ridiculous, and the chances of doing it are about 100 to 1. Voila, now I am worry free! Or am I? All this I probably wouldn't have blogged about if it hadn't been that my chances were about to increase to 5 to 1.

So that brings me to a week ago. My dad and I were driving home at about quarter past ten from the campfire on the ball field, and what do we see waddling in front of us at its own sweet pace? A koala! (hehe bet you weren't expecting that one!). Actually it really was a porcupine, as I'm sure you already guessed, and there he was, all bushy and illumined by overpowering headlights. Finally he figured out that he was a little too slow for us, and he scuttled onto the Hansen's lawn. Now this was very interesting, but not too remarkable since we see a porcupine every once in awhile on the ball field or something. But apparently this wasn't the only time this porcupine decided to blaze a trail on our road, because Ruth told me Sunday morning that she had seen also seen one of these prickly critters one night, and I later found out that my mom had as well. Hmm, maybe my distant phobia of stepping on a porcupine in the dark wasn't so childish anymore. All this, however, would have gone on unnoticed and unwritten if it weren't for a fateful evening.

I was walking home Sunday night, at about ten o'clock, past the Men's Dorm and right up above the church, when Danny drove by me in their mini van. Now he and Ruth live next door to us, just beyond our house, so occasionally Ruth might offer me a ride or something. Well, oddly enough, I didn't feel like riding, so I fervently wished that Danny wouldn't offer me a ride, even though it had been raining. I needn't have worried, because he didn't offer me a ride anyway (and I'll tell you honestly that I don't expect him or Ruth, or anybody else for that matter, to offer, so it wasn't rude or anything). I continued on, in my own brisk yet plodding way, and watched him disappear over the top of the hill. Nothing unusual. As I neared the top of the hill--wait, is that a dark shape in the road? It was a still, large black lump. Of course if it was a porcupine, it would be moving, unless it was afraid of me. Could it have gotten hit by the car? No, Davie's dog Buffy was sitting by the road too calmly for her to have just witnessed a slaughter. I was probably just making things up. I backed up down the hill a little bit, thankful that the lamp was shining at the end of our driveway otherwise it would be like descending into a valley of pitch. Yes, it did almost look like the light was silhouetting a black shape, on the left side of the road. Or maybe I was just seeing things. Nonetheless, I stayed on the other side of the road as I passed, reminding myself of the priest or Levite who ignored the wounded Samaritan. Except this wasn't a Samaritan, it was just a porcupine, if it was a porcupine which I wasn't even sure it was. Therefore I didn't feel any pangs of guilt to leave the shapeless black thing to its blackness. I would find out in the morning.

However, I had almost completely forgotten about it in the morning, until I was walking up the road and saw it. This was going to be interesting. I ran forward. Wow, so I actually wasn't seeing things last night, and it really was a koala! Whoops, I mean a porcupine. I had never had such a good look at one before. It lay in a spiky hump on its side, with quilled fur that almost looked soft, it's curved paws curled up, it's little black eye (it was his profile remember) open, and bright red blood coming out of--his nose? Already the packed dirt at his head was stained with his blood in a pool about a foot long. Now I actually had a first-hand experience dealing with a literal pool of blood! Oh I'm sorry. . . . too many gory details. You see that although I did indeed feel sorry for the poor chap, my utter fascination with the whole situation far outweighed my remorse. Here was real live--I mean dead roadkill, at Fairwood! I don't think we've had anything larger than a snake or just maybe a chipmunk. No, no, I am not celebrating the fact that Fairwood now has had roadkill, but just that it was about the most interesting thing that has happened to me since Australia. And I had almost witnessed it! Uuuhh, I shudder to think what would have happened if I had stepped on him the night before. . . but no matter.

Now do you laugh at me for worrying about stepping on a porcupine?