https://everythingspeakstome.com/files/original/fd29dca5d8b2272a48413c4832c116cc.jpg e6831b19cfab2b62eb990e3f1a8acc2f Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Miami Stories Description An account of the resource Real stories of life in Miami. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Please post your written submission in this field. The images you would like to include should be posted as attachments below. I push the front door to the L.A. Fitness open with more energy than usual, my arms feeling like gelatin after being in the sauna post-workout. It was chest day, and every chest day is paired with a bicep day. Two and half hours of pulling and pushing heavy objects followed by a cooldown in the sauna will make you think gravity has a vendetta against your arms. My friend Michael, who now owes me gas money, and I walk up to my car. I reach for the handle with what felt like a two-hundred-pound arm, opened the door, and got inside my car. It wasn’t a far drive from the gym to Michael’s house, but the soreness and tightness from my upper body would make it a long one. As I’m driving up the street, I see something in the middle of my lane. “What is that?” I ask, knowing Michael didn’t know either because he was looking at his phone. “What?” he responds looking up at the road. As we approach this mysterious something, we squint and start guessing what it could be. “Is that a palm frond?” he questions. “Nah it’s too small, it looks like a black bag of trash maybe?” I wondered as I kept getting closer. Finally, my near-sightedness kicks in and I notice the bag of trash was furry and had a tail. It was a dead possum laying on its side and when it clicked in my brain, I swerved with all the sore arm energy I could to avoid running it over again. Michael noticed it was a dead animal too but what caught him more off guard was the tiny jerk to the steering wheel I did to avoid running the already-dead possum over. “Bro why did you swerve? It’s already dead,” he says. I couldn’t think of the reason I reacted so abrupt when I wanted to avoid hitting the already dead animal, other than the fact that I didn’t want possum brain and vermin blood on my right tire. So that’s what I told him. But in all honesty, it spooked me to see yet another dead animal laying in the street while I was driving. Now I’m not the biggest believer in the universe giving us signs pointing towards a deeper life meaning, but when you see it on multiple and frequent occasions, it makes you wonder... The rest of the drive I was thinking about all the dead animals I’ve seen all around Miami within the past two weeks. On my way to work, only about a five-minute drive, I was driving up a street that’s a straight shot to the shopping center of my job. I saw not one, but two dead ducks. One on the side of the road and one in the middle of the road, half of it visibly ran over multiple times. I take the same route to work every shift and to see that duck be more flattened than the time before is just gruesome. I almost wanted to see the vultures to do their thing ... weird of them to be missing out on such a hearty meal or two. It wasn’t like it was a nearby occurrence either; even on my way to my dad’s place, who lives in Hialeah and is about a half hour drive from my house, there were animals laying lifeless on the Palmetto. A black cat, which again, I’m not superstitious, but come on. A skunk getting off the expressway going into Hialeah. I even saw a fox, the second time I’ve ever seen one and it was dead this time around. I drop Michael off at his house. I never told him about all the dead animals I saw because it was making me think. I’d want to sound logical and not completely insane before I mention any sort of conspiracy theory to him about what all this death has to do with me. While backing out of his driveway, I start to wonder if this recurring theme of death is related to my own well- being. I mean, I’ve felt physically fine the past year despite the pandemic. Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I was sick, my immune system has done me wonders. But then again, death could happen at any moment to anybody anywhere. Then I start to think about those close to me. This past year has been difficult for my family when it came to death. I lost my great-grandmother to natural causes, and I lost my aunt too soon and unexpectedly. But this all happened before I started seeing gizzard food. So, I look to those who are with me today. My immediate family’s immune system doesn’t match up with mine but they’re all doing well. One of my grandfathers isn’t doing so well but I’ve already braced myself for the inevitable. Everyone else that comes to mind seem healthy and fine from the last time I remembered. Is it my friends? The drive from Michael’s house to mine wasn’t a far one either. We lived relatively close to each other but the thoughts and perspectives I gathered made it feel longer. A drive that is five minutes from the gym to Michael’s house and then five minutes from his house to mine felt like I was driving to Hialeah all over again. I think back and remembered the last image I had of Michael in my mind about three minutes ago. I mean, he looked fine. He didn’t cough or sneeze in my car, thankfully. I look back at my other two close friends, who both had COVID-19 recently but survived those long, tasteless, and empty smelling weeks. Even those who I’m acquainted with that aren’t that close to me seem okay too. I don’t know what’s preventing natural selection to do its thing and rid of all the deceased from the streets of Miami. There’s just never been a time where I’ve seen so much roadkill and I’ve lived here my whole life. Then I ask myself the same question that Michael asked me earlier: why did I swerve to avoid hitting that already dead possum? I mean, yeah, I also didn’t want to feel that thud of running something over, but that was really a secondary thought. Was it because I thought it had a chance of still being alive? ‘Would it be inhumane to run it over again?’ I think philosophically. And where are those vultures when their dinner is sitting freely on 162nd avenue? Maybe they’re already busy with the animals in Hialeah. I make it back home and stopped thinking about all the possibilities. I decided that it was maybe all just a huge coincidence. A recurring, repeating, disturbing coincidence. I tend not to think about those possibilities, as I’d like to keep my energy neutral and not so negative. I didn’t even stop to think about the good-natured possibilities, I think my brain is just wired to automatically think about the negative ones. The point is I wanted to stop thinking about it and put an end to it. The pandemic has been going on for over two years and death has been linked, of course, to those who caught the virus. It obviously hasn’t been easy for my friends and family to not catch COVID-19, especially since Miami has been one of the most infected cities in America, not to mention that this city is a huge tourist destination. Celebrity deaths seem to be a common theme as of late, as well. So, forgive me if I sounded a little crazy when I conspired what all these dead animals had to do with me. I just hope that if it is a sign, it’s more for the better than for the worse. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Free Samples, No Takers Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dominic Diaz Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 04/22/2022