This morning I did. I saw a badger by the side of the road, and I didn’t stop to check he was dead. Should I have done? I don’t know.
This evening, as I left work, I drove out of the industrial estate towards the main road. I saw a young girl sitting on the pavement at the opposite side of the road, all curled up on herself in that exhausted or saddened way they have. I drove past, in the left hand lane, intending to take the second turn up the hill. Somewhere in the matter of yards before the decision was irreversibly made (it’s a sliproad onto a dual carriageway and the next junction is over a mile away) I swung over into the outside lane, around the bizarre double roundabout and back into the industrial estate.
I pulled up next to the slightly startled girl, leant across and wound down the window. “I’m just checking, are you alright? You just look a bit abandoned, that’s all.”
She gave me a beautiful smile “yes, I’m fine.”
“OK then.”
And I drove off again. I didn’t have to drive home wondering. I don’t know what I’ve have done if she’d said no, I guess I’d have made it up at that point (no point in having a motto if you don’t live by it 😉 ) but I guess in that split second of decision where I changed lane and drove back around, I’d managed to think ‘what if that was Big out there, and she wasn’t OK’ and I guess I’d hope at that point, that there would be someone who wouldn’t drive by.
Leave a Reply