Things are different now in the world - behavior patterns are changing - businesses are closed down, there’s less traffic and activity on the roads, and people are sheltered at home.

It’s challenging for everyone, but with all of that, I did not expect to find this on our Illinois country roads...

What the???

I was heading out to check my PO Box late in the afternoon - late enough to ensure the post office would be closed and I’d be unlikely to encounter anyone. Often I will ride to do this task, but this day I took the car. I didn’t realize it at the time that it was likely the safer option, offering protection from marauders. I did not realize that our society had devolved to this level, that I should be on the watch for roving gangs searching out that one last tank of juice.

It’s clear to me now that I should have been more wary.

From a distance I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I know from experience that, traveling in mountain regions you do periodically see rocks in the road, but this is northern Illinois. If it were a fallen rock it would have fallen directly from the sky. But what else could it be? The size of it was... curious, to say the least.

When I stopped I took the first picture to document where I’d been and what had happened, such was my uncertainty about the situation. And then, after checking for traffic - just for safety, mind you - the fear of roving brigands had not yet entered my thoughts.

The road was clear, so I approached. As the item came into sharp focus my heart fell, for now I knew what it was. Now I realized just how far things had fallen.

It was a head, ladies and gentlemen. A head, unattached to anything else, laying there in the road. What have we become?

Heads will roll