The broad perimeter road, warmed by the hot autumn sun, is filled with cars. There are too many solid concrete structures to call it a countryside, yet it lacks any signs of human habitation to be considered a city. How desolate. There is an animal on the barren ground. A red furry chunk is lying by the central line guardrail. The fur color is different from the brown of a water deer, wondering if it might be a fox, but it turned out to be as large as a newborn calf. The paw pads were visible. It’s a dog’s paw. A fluffy dog is lying quietly. The large dog fell to the ground, with a thud, lifeless.

 The materials wherever people live in industrial society, aside from the bed, sofa, and clothes, are solid. They need to be solid to last long and be sold at high prices. Roads are covered with asphalt, and walls with cement and steel. Rainwater cannot sink into the earth, and plants cannot sprout from it. No animal body can stand up to a bumper of running car. Animal bodies burst and shatter upon contact. Birds that collide with windows fall to the ground without ever understanding why they died. We would understand if touched with our bare hands and feet. The texture is unkind to animals. Everywhere is dangerous. In the city, the only places that human skin directly touches are excessively soft. The materiality of the city is selfish.

 More dangerous than the textures one can touch are water and air. They are slow disasters rather than clashes. The climate is changing unpredictably, in ways even humans cannot foresee. It changes rapidly, outpacing the speed of evolution. New forms of pollution, simply by breathing, contaminate and impair the respiratory systems of animals. Eating the same food as usual can cause stomachaches and nausea. Animals die en masse. Humans, discovering the pile of dead animals, are shocked only afterward. Efforts by people to uncover the cause usually fail to reach a resolution. We can’t even discern everything that is dying.

 It is not about arguing not to die. That is not the point. It is natural to get old and die. Rather, it is an illusion of human history to grow old and quietly end one’s life. For animals living outside of human supervision, death comes when they become even slightly weak and cannot find food, or when a natural enemy appears and snatches their head off. Rather, we worry about the animals that cannot die in their own natural ways. Lovebugs, mice, and kestrels that die stuck to unexpected 'sticky traps' suffer in agony for a long time from substances they have never encountered in millions of years of evolution. Most animals entangled in the glue desperately try to escape when it clings to their fur or feathers, but they ultimately face a slow, gasping for breath, helpless death.

 ‘Migration is possible’ is a phrase frequently encountered in environmental impact assessments. It means that although legally protected animals live in the space that is intended to be altered, their ability to relocate justifies the destruction of that space. Another common phrase is ‘because the population is large,’ which implies that it is acceptable to kill some individuals because there are many. Of course, this is generally a lie. Capitalism has used the power of ill-defined science to eliminate animals. Animals have neither been able to migrate nor were they numerous. The so-called ‘migration’ and ‘large population’ are mere excuses, but in reality, one species goes extinct each year.

 If we generously consider it purely from an 'ecological' perspective, maybe some deaths are justified. The death of one or two Boreal digging frog might seem insignificant. If a Boreal digging frog lays more than 1,500 eggs and only about 1% survive to adulthood, then 1,485 will die before reaching maturity. They might become prey for other animals or perish due to drying ponds. Therefore, the death of one or two Boreal digging frog under a step might be ecologically trivial. Similarly, the death of a few rooks from pesticide poisoning or the destruction of an egrets’ nesting sights leading to the death of the chicks might not hold significant ecological meaning. The death of a dog ‘ecologically’ in a dog meat restaurant really means nothing.

 Throughout history, humans have viewed animals not as individuals but merely as cogwheels in an ecological system. They are seen as replaceable lives. For a long time, even among humans, only a few individuals such as kings or presidents were considered dignified and significant. Even today, soldiers and civilians are only recorded as numbers of casualties in game-like wars and massacres. Moreover, a world concerned with human extinction has yet to emerge. In a world where the decline in the number of swallows is not even recorded, contemplating the world experienced by a single swallow is considered the work of eccentric individuals, like the Heungbu.

 But now we’re starting to talk about not stepping on any body, even accidentally. We are beginning to understand that lizards also play and fish create beautiful architecture. The realization that non-human animals experience feelings similar to humans makes us feel guilt and shame. Even if it is an illusion or delusion, our minds move ahead. Even if animals are labeled as private property, harmful wild animals that “damage” crops, or invasive species introduced from other countries, we are beginning to wonder whether we should grant them some dignity. We are hesitating because they are something alive and moving like ourselves.

 Hesitation is unstable. It has become difficult to move carelessly. When the boundary between friend and foe blurs, the gun that was once aimed at what was believed to be an enemy must be lowered. There is a fear that the bullets might bounce randomly like in a pinball game. We begin to pay attention to things that were once inconsequential. The carcass of a large dog lying on the road might become a burden that weighs heavily on somebody’s mind for a long time. Wondering how the world became such a mess. It may seem irreversible, but that doesn't mean it all needs to be reversed. Willingly accepting the state of confusion should come first. Then, those who are meant to be by your side will appear for the first time.