The drivers in their cars were glad they were out of the rain, when they saw the man with his rubber ducky in one hand slowly walking down the hard shoulder. Occasionally one would stop and ask whether they could give him a lift. But the man only shook his head without looking. He had his eyes firmly on the asphalt, so he would not miss anything. And then the car would drive away, leaving the man in the pouring rain. Some already knew him. He walked the road every day at the same time. They wondered what he was doing there with his rubber ducky and a children's backpack. But the streets were full of loonies, and he was just another one. There was no real need to waste time thinking about them. The man was on a mission. He was searching. He did not care about the junk or the lost hub cabs that lay around, but only about roadkill. Sometimes he was seen next to some dead animal that lay on the hard shoulder or even on the street. Whenever he saw the corpse of animal he went there, even if it was in the middle of the road. It was quite dangerous when he stood there with the fast and heavy traffic passing him. The drivers often had to break hard not to hit him, and they sounded their horns in anger. Sometimes one would stop and try to get him off the street in fury. They had to force him, because he did not listen to them. And only when he was shaken by someone he looked up with empty eyes, not understanding what they were saying. If he was dragged off the streets, he stood at the hard shoulder, his eyes on the roadkill, watching it being squashed by the cars to an indistinguishable pulp. After a while he returned. It was no use trying to stop him. Even the police had tried. They had taken him with them and interrogated and warned him, but the next day he had been back on the street. They did not care about him anymore. It was no use talking to him or trying to stop him. Only when someone called them they went to get him, although they knew that he was there every day. They knew someday he would be run over by a car, and since he was a pain in the neck, they kind of looked forward to it. It would be one pain less. That day the man found another animal. It was a fox. It had long been dead, probably run over in the night. There was not much left to indicate that it was a fox. Only the tail made the bloody mess a fox. It lay about two feet off the hard shoulder on the street. The man stopped and got on his knees, unaware of the rain that soaked his pants. He knelt there for a quarter of an hour without moving, holding the rubber ducky in his both hands, talking to it like a child. He did not feel the pain in his bad knee that was a result of his accident and still had not healed completely. After a while he put the duck aside and took an old, blood stained paper bag out of the backpack and a red plastic scoop. He began to scratch the remains of the fox off the asphalt and into the paper bag, careful not to leave anything behind. When he was finished, nothing was left to indicate what had happened to the fox. The rain helped to wash away the last traces. He continued to walk down the road for miles until he had reached his destination. It was a little monument in the middle of nowhere, in the grass just next to the road. It was a worn wooden cross with sixteen names on them, and some faded flowers in a plastic vase, that was filled to the brim with rain water. In front of the cross was a little box with a candle in it that had been blown out by the wind. He knelt in front of the cross and remained there for some minutes, with the rubber ducky in his hands, holding it as if he wanted to present or offer it to the cross. He knew all the names by heart. When he got up, he went past the little monument, searched for a proper place and began to dig a hole in the soaked grass, where he put the remains of the fox. Then he closed the grave and put a little wooden cross, he had made of twigs, on the little hill. Behind the monument were dozens of similar hills, some still had crosses on them, others had been washed or blown away. Then he went back to kneel once more in front of the cross. He took out another candle and tried to light it. The box was giving it only little shelter, so it took him quite a while to light it, and he had to protect it with his body, so that it would not go out immediately. He knelt there, remembering the 21. of August. and a tear was washed away by the rain. It had been a warm and sunny day. He was in a great mood and listened to the radio in his van. He was swinging to the music, so it took him by surprise when he suddenly saw a pigeon cross the road just before him. In panic he tore the steering wheel around to avoid it and got on the other lane where he crashed into a bus full of school children. The bus turned over and skidded into a tree, while the van had only minor damage. When he got out, everything was in a mess. Children were crying, people were running around. He wandered around, not knowing what to do and picked up the blood stained rubber ducky that lay on the street, lost between broken glass. He wondered what had happened to the pigeon. No one seemed to care about it. He searched everything until he found it. It had been run over but was still alive. the wings broken lying in its blood. He tried to help it, but he did not know how, and so he stroked it, until it died on the street. He had not even been able to save the pigeon. Not even the pigeon.