Thursday, August 07, 2008

Oh, my sweet little hopper...

Mr. Tinyman is gone.

I know what you're thinking:
that he was 11,
that he was way, way, way too old for such a tiny and angry little bunny,
that his little body just gave up.

But it's not like that at all.

For such a domesticated, housebound little rabbit - one who'd been eating avocado off my teaspoon just that morning - he died a wild and profound death.

He was in the little grazing pen we made for him, then he was gone. I've left him out to nibble the grasses many, many times over the five years we've lived here. I try to take him in as it gets dark, mostly because that's when the mosquitos get bad.

We went out and got dessert, when we got home I asked Alexis to go get him. But all that was left was a bloodied leaf and a few wisps of his downy under-fur.

The mercy is, owls kill quickly.

Cats and other predators make a huge screaming kafuffle. There would have been blood and fur everywhere, and Kor's last moments would have been desperate ones.

Instead, death came in quickly on silent wings. It took him and they sailed together into the warm night. Would that death comes for all of us that way.

We had been together for ten years, a third of my life.