Point of View: Heedlessness

A husband and wife were run down on Sag Harbor’s Division Street at about 7 p.m. on Saturday, June 20.

I saw it happen, though it may have gone unmentioned on the police log inasmuch as they were only ducks.

Returning from the Shelter Island 10K, which, despite the rain, was as pleasant as always, I had made a right turn onto Division near the village’s nexus, and saw the mallards sallying into the road in front of a small car that was up ahead. I thought of course that he would stop. He certainly had time to. It wasn’t as if a squirrel had had second thoughts and had reversed course, darting back the way he’d come.

But no, he ran them both over — killing the wife, spilling her guts on the pavement, and leaving the husband mangled, in agony.

And the driver drove on. I couldn’t believe it.

I pulled over — the traffic was fairly heavy, as always — and, putting the flashers on, walked up to where they were and picked them up and took them to the side of the road and put them down, and said, when a passer-by asked if animal rescue shouldn’t be called, that I’d go up to the police station, which was nearby, and tell them.

A young man who was behind me and had gotten out when I’d stopped, cried out when he saw. He couldn’t believe what had happened either.

It wasn’t the crime of the century — they were only ducks.

Actually it was a crime — one which, it’s safe to say, we all commit: the crime of heedlessness.

And heedlessness is never more evident here than in the summer, which if it teaches us nothing else reminds us — time and again, unfortunately — that howevermuch we are attracted by distractions we should pay heed. To others, to all others.