ManicDDaily

After the big rain in the country Sunday, I saw an eft crossing the road.

I love efts–their orange, their curves, their teeny angled legs.

I squatted down next to it, taking picture after picture, not questioning, in my delight, why the little salamander was being so cooperative.

Then, not wanting to leave it in harm’s way (and loving to hold efts), I picked it up with gentled fingers.

Its little body was limp and stiff at once; not even its tail curled.

My delight changed instantly to revulsion. Well, sadness first. I feel like I’ve been finding lots of dead animals lately–first butterflies, now efts–not to mention the stilled humming bird on the floor of a glassed-in porch, the mole near the tractor tracks.

Then came the revulsion. There is something in us that wants to keep a certain distance from death.

I put the eft down, wiped my hand on a pant’s leg, trudged heavily on.

But how could I leave the poor thing on the road? (I argued with myself that it was really a driveway.)

Still, I went back, tearing a few pages out of a handy composition book to slide under the little orange corpse, when, hurrah!, the thing started crawling across my lined paper, its tail modulating in script.

Had it been waiting for a blank page? Something non-digital?

Who knows? I got it safely to the side of the drive. Took video this time–since it moved.