When I was a kid, around 8 or 9 years old, I was walking to school one chilly morning when I saw some interesting garbage at the curb. It was my mother's dread that I would drag home some crap and sneak it into the garage. Even now, I am barely able to resist picking through piles of trash. I confine the compulsion to exploring an occasional dumpster.
The best thing I found that morning was a large metal cooler, the kind you might find a stray beer in, big and red probably older than I was. I lifted the lid to the metal box and found the interior to be a little rusty and dirty, but still good enough to stash stuff in. I considered whether it was worth it to take it back just a few houses away. I was already late by my standard couple minutes, what would a few more be?
As I was deliberating this, a neighbor started his truck across the street. A cat which had been sleeping on the engine block, presumably because it had once been warm, shrieked and scampered out of the wheel well. As I looked up, I saw it run straight toward me, its puffy tail and face animated with fright. At the same time, a car sped up the street, ignoring all traffic laws and endangering the safety of bad children like me. The cat disappeared under the speeding vehicle. As the car passed, I saw that the cat was still running toward me. Too shocked to move, I watched the cat leap and jump into the cooler in front of me. The lid slammed shut over it with the finality of the slap of the rubber seal.
I stood there for a couple of seconds in shock. How had the cat managed to avoid becoming a pancake? It must have passed directly under the car. In that case, it could have still been alive. I lifted the lid. The cat laid curled inside with the glassy dead stare. Just to make sure it wasn't stunned, I poked it. It didn't flinch.
I am not sure what killed the cat. I am no expert in trauma. It could have been killed by the starting of the truck across the street, whacked by a fan blade, shocked by the electrical system. It might have had enough life in it to make the journey across the street on its reflexes alone. Or did the car do it in? Its spine could have hit against the muffler or one of the axes. Its head could have been knocked by the bumper. Or was it the slam of the cooler lid on its senses and the darkness which followed that informed its nervous system to cease?
In my mind, as a spooked and spooky child, I thought perhaps I killed it just by looking at it. What if I hadn't exposed the thing to light? It would have slept off the experience and crawled out later. The cooler was ruined anyways. I closed the lid and continued on to school where I only got in a little trouble.