This is how I would summarized my predicament afterward. Not aware until after the words had passed through my lips what I just said. It all began on route 51 north along the Ohio river on my journey westward leaving the failed city of Pittsburgh behind. I did not get far that day. A deer stopped me on the side of the road. I figured she was a female. But I'm no geneticist, so I didn't try to clone her. I vowed to leave that problem to the experts. She was dead alright. Dead as a door nail and just as stiff. Looking into her empty eyes I could see they were not yet cloudy. She was beautiful. That is until I turned her head and saw the blood slowly dripping out of her ear. I remembered all the deer I've seen over the years and how gracefully they descend hill sides and just seem to melt into the woods at the slightest hint of my presence. I would really like to eat her. I never skinned a deer before. Well, now I was about to. It was inevitable. A conspiracy decades in the making. God made the river and the deer for this purpose but not this purpose alone. The trees were involved too in a very important way. I know I don't have to explain that.
On the side of the road was a steep embankment with railroad tracks alongside it, then a train yard on the flood plain then the river itself flowing slowly forever toward the Mississippi, toward the Gulf of Mexico, toward the great melting pot of the ocean itself. I decided that when I made it to the Mississippi river I would spit in it. That way I'll always remember it, just like when I went over Niagara Falls, I would become the river. I grabbed her by the legs, Steve grabbed her by the arms. We nudged her slowly down the slope. At the bottom, I pulled out a knife and cutting began. Up the chest from anus to neck. I was stealing her chakras, destroying what wasn't there any more. I've never eaten venison before, I can't wait to try it. The hide peeled off like vegetable skin revealing the delicate flesh underneath. It was like a plastic bag, no mess whatsoever. Now where’s the meat? Not there, that looks like the liver. The back and the hind leg. Her legs were massive. She was an extraordinary runner, but something went wrong. What went wrong was human history. We made a wrong turn and started building something bigger than ourselves. It just didn't fit, it was 10 sizes too big. And now she was dead. I wonder who eats roadkill humans? I sure as hell wouldn't. I took out my hatchet and started chopping off her head. If she wasn't decapitated, her soul would never leave her. I wish I could use her entire body. But I can only carry so much weight on my already fully loaded bicycle.
I strapped the hide, two legs and her head onto my bike. Steve carried the meat. The steaks we cooked were delicious. The stew we had the next night was even better. An extraordinary meal and a fitting end to the great conspiracy. It was three days I carried that head. Three days that I kept worrying about my head falling off. You see it was heavy and when the weight shifted all my gear would be dragged down to one side and be on the verge of economic collapse. A fire was built. Sleeping bags were unrolled. Sleep was deep. And a head was inside a plastic bag in the National Forest. After the hide was scrapped, I removed my head from the plastic bag and put it in the fire. There were larvae growing in the neck having a feast, maybe this is who eats dead humans. I can't imagine where they come from. They must stalk us at every turn waiting for the moment when we fall down and never get up again. Then after the flies do their work they quietly appear on the scene eating our decaying flesh. I used my hatchet to break a hole on the top of the skull. Brains were cooked, mixed with water and then smeared onto the waiting hide. The skull was abandoned 200 miles from the headless, skinless body.