A Requiem for the Crushed

This morning while bringing stuff to the car I stepped on a snail.

I hate that sound. To me if there’s a sound that is the audible meaning of the word guilt it’s the crunching sound of a snail. They’re small. They’re helpless. They can’t get out of the way. They see you coming from ten minutes away and they spend that then minutes trying to get the hell out of your way. But they can’t. They’re snails and they move slowly.

I’m sorry snail. These are my words to commemorate your passing:

A Requiem for the Crushed

This morning came early, too early by far;
6am found me bringing stuff out to the car.
Two bags I brought out, each with a lunch
But when I stepped back, I heard a crunch.

I grimaced in grief and grew slightly pale
For you see what I’d done was stepped on a snail.
On that very sound is my poor conscience built
For that sound alone is the sound of guilt.

The life of a snail seems not a great thing,
No Edda's composed, no ballads we sing;
They’re small and ill coloured, like a suit of Herb Tarlek’s,
They’ve the misfortune to taste good in butter and garlic.

But these little critters are innocuous to a fault
No harm and no foul, that’s their gestalt.
They crawl through life slowly, but they do get there
Wherever that is (But I’m sure that it’s there).

Oh snail! I am sorry my foot found your shell!
Now my mind burns in some Dante like Hell;
“How was I to know?” I rationalize
But I can imagine the look in your eyes

As my foot came down and you yelled out: “Noooooo!”
But I could not hear: the decibel s were too low.
Yet I heard the crunch and I knew what it meant;
One snail life snuffed out, one snail dream spent.

I hope now you rest in some snail release:
Where all of your crawl paths are lined with grease
And you can get up to twelve mines an hour;
The power to save yourself, you need that power.