Raccoon

While we wait for ice cream, a hundred fires burned all the days of summer. Racoon, still an infant, on its back, blank-faced towards the sky and there, a thousand starlings swarm in silence where once there were ten thousand, where next year there will be few dozens.

No entrails, no blood. Its paws are burnt and something looks broken. I pull the racoon off the road. Its body doesn't need to be desecrated by drivers who will swear at it for soiling their cars when they splash over it. Better use of it as meat for a hungry coyote.

Inspired by Walk the Line and and also The reality of Canada’s new season of fire. Illustration by Fred Ni.