Earlier this year, I'd posted a journal about the time I'd rescued a small brown field mouse (http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6414380/), who was trapped in a big blue recyclables tub. Well, a couple of weeks ago, I had a similar scenario, in which I was trying to save the life of another rodent... only to learn that this vermin wanted to end it all! Let me set the stage for you...

It was Monday morning, June 29, 2015, and I'd left my Margate, Florida condo very early in the morning for Pompano Beach. I had brought along the disposable camera I had used the day before - to take pictures at the "Florida Supercon" in Miami Beach - and decided to take a few more 'photo-ops' with the remaining unused exposures. My main goal was to shoot various misspelled signs - to be posted in "FA" later on, as part of my "Spot The Error" series...

I had just arrived at the intersection of Atlantic Boulevard and Powerline Road, and was about to cross the street (to take a photograph of one of the aforementioned signs)... when, all of a sudden, a brownish-grey blur caught the corner of my eye. As it turned out, it was a small rat, that was running away from one of the restaurant s on my side of the street (possibly Wendy's, possibly Burger King). It ran towards me, jumped up briefly, and brushed against the sock on my left leg, before running out into the street, amongst all the 'rush hour' traffic. The other pedestrians with me were taken aback by this unusual sight.

At one point, the rat was in the dead center of said intersection, where the cars were unlikely to run him over. I was wondering if he was either trying to make it completely across the street, or that was attempting to commit suicide. Suddenly, a tire from one of the cars grazed the side of the unpredictable rodent, and he began to stagger back my way. He finally stopped and began to breathe heavily on the spot he stood on.

Reaching into my travel bag, I quickly pulled out the camera (I was going to use on some signs), and I slowly approached the injured rat. Keeping my eyes peeled for any oncoming traffic, I got close enough to him to take a picture of him. (The top portion of this two-part 'photo-op' depicts the first photo I'd taken of the rat; You can see my shadow in the lower-right foreground, while [in the upper-left corner] stopped vehicles on Powerline Road were waiting for the traffic light to turn green.)

I didn't want to see the tired rodent get flattened by any more cars, so after taking his picture, I stood behind him, as if I'd appeared to be a large cat about to chase him. It managed to muster up enough courage and energy to run directly towards the curb I'd just came from. For some odd reason, I'd felt relieved that I'd saved its life...

Resting by the curb, the rat appeared tired again, and I'd decided to take one more picture of him - just so the people I show it to will know how large it was. (The bottom picture of this two-part 'photo-op' shows the rat next to a piece of trash in the street, so you can make the comparison, size-wise.)

However, I had made the big mistake of switching my camera to 'flash mode', so that the rodent would look clearer in the light. The sudden brightness of the flash startled the rat, and it ran back into the intersection again... where it promptly got run over by a car going east on Atlantic Boulevard...

A moment of personal triumph turned into an alternate moment of guilt upon seeing the rat's demise. I'd caused it to run back into traffic, when I should've left well enough alone (after just one picture).

What would YOU had done, if any of you came across a situation such as this?