The Dead Boy

Sometimes, there's nothing to be done but to walk away.

It was going to be an 8 to 9-hour road trip and both [identity-protected] and I were gearing up for a long drive last Sunday. On the first hour of the drive, we were just moving smoothly on a two-lane national road occasionally overtaking a slow tricycle or a bus picking up passengers.

And then we passed a makeshift road-block on the opposite lane. Vehicles on my side of the road were slowing down a bit to rubberneck so it was easy (and tempting) to sneak a glance. The road-block itself was made up of two full sacks placed in the middle of the road. In between the two sacks were these thick sheets of cardboard on the road and what seemed to be red rice scattered on half of the lane.

I thought at first that some truck had dropped its cargo. However, I also thought it strange that there seemed to be a lot of people milling around.

[Identity-protected] was the first to peg on that someone might have gotten killed because there was this smell in the air. True enough, as we were passing the scene, I saw a slippered boy's foot sticking out from underneath the cardboard sheets.

Then I realized what the scattered "red rice' really was.

And then we were past the area and were on our way.

(Edited to add: Had to clean up the sentences of this post. God, what was wrong with me when I wrote this? Oh yeah, there was a dead cat on conscience...)