Dan Hagen

As I was driving home from work today, I saw a girl walking down the street. Didn’t think anything of it. My windows were rolled down though, and after a few moments I heard something strange. It sounded like a cat meowing. Turns out the girl was holding a distressed kitten in her hands.

I felt bad. The traffic was terrible. There was a girl walking along the cement barrier out in the summer heat, carrying an unhappy kitty. Normally I wouldn’t offer some random girl a ride, but I became determined to stop and do so anyway. Maybe my attempts would be futile. Maybe not. I tried anyway.

I saw her enter the 7-11 by the overpass. It was a good opportunity for me to stop. I parked with perfect timing, exited my car as she exited the convenience store. She had a small plastic cup of water so she could give the kitten a drink.

I told her that I saw her walking along the freeway overpass, with a small helpless pet in her hands. I offered her a ride. She graciously accepted. I took her to her home, which would have been a good two miles further for her to walk if I hadn’t picked her up.

She was nice. Apparently it was a kitten that she and her boyfriend rescued. During the drive, the kitten calmed down and appeared to be more at ease. As I dropped her off, I reminded her to take care of it, to feed it and water it. She was nice. I drove home feeling a little better.

I’m not writing well because I’m stressed. I have a lot of shit going on with work and family. I don’t give a shit. I didn’t give a shit about the girl either. But I wanted to make sure the kitten was in safe hands.

Supposedly, anatomically modern humans have been around for 200,000 years. We know something of the past 7,000-9,000 or so. But what was going on before that? Little empires rising and falling, possibly religious and cultural conflicts that still echo even in the present day. Interbreeding with other hominids. Ice age coming and fucking everything up, an apocalypse of sorts. All kinds of crazy stories and happenings that we will never know.

Languages and traditions gone forever. We really only see a tiny fraction of our history. We’re like a 50 year old man in a mental institution with amnesia, and can only remember the past week of our life.

There could have been a person who looked just like you, maybe just as smart as you, running around europe 150,000 years ago. Can’t help but wonder what their life was like.

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