Highway hypnosis took over the minute I finished the on ramp to I-94 west. Destination: home. The back-end of the van sagged with holiday food which included not one, but two frozen turkeys. I scored a couple of fifteen pound weaklings. I felt like kicking sand in their faces, of which they had none. I set the cruise at seventy-three, pulled the arm rest down, and turned off the Christmas music.

I saw something short, white, and moving along the rumble strip on the right near exit sixty-eight. I cancelled the cruise and coasted. It was a bird! It was a rotund bird trotting with the traffic. A left-wing was stretched in the air. I tapped the brake and as I got closer its tail feathers reached for the sky and spread like a Geisha’s fan. “It’s a turkey!” I said, “A suicidal turkey!” Come to think of it, a…