Molly arrived back at Erleichda shaken and upset. She had run over a wombat.“I wasn’t driving fast,” she said, “and all of a sudden there it was. Just ran out and I couldn’t stop.”
It’s like that out here, driving, especially at dusk. Kangaroos, rabbits, wombats.Kangaroos and rabbits seem hypnotised by car lights; they freeze, then suddenly run, and their direction is never predictable, and is most often in front of you. Wombats just decide where they’re going and go, in as straight a line as possible, and if there’s a fence in the way, hard luck for the fence, because the wombat will try to go straight through it. They are not popular around here for what they do to fences.
“Don’t fret, Molly,” said George. “We know you didn’t do it deliberately, it happens to everyone sometime. It’s their instinct to run, so they run.”
“Well it’s not a very good instinct,” sobbed Molly. “They should change it. Why don’t they just stand still! I don’t want to hurt them.”
“They can’t change it,” said George. “Not so long ago their instinct served them well - if they stood still one of my ancestors would have speared them, they’d end up tucker. So running was right then, wrong now, but they just keep doing it.”
“Just like humans,” said Molly. “All the things we do that were appropriate then but aren’t any more. At least we can change.”
“Mind you,” said George, “it’s not quite that easy. I mean now they might get shot if they stand still. Dead if they do, dead if they don’t. Sometimes the old way of doing things isn’t all that bad. I guess cars have made all the difference. Now they have to make a choice - right ain’t right, and wrong ain’t wrong.”
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