Hasen

Another walk in the park, another year: my companion is smaller, and considerably less mobile and articulate. Up the hill where the railroad tracks run we encounter a rabbit, a normal occurrence, except that this rabbit is dying. As we walk past its hiding place it explodes out of the underbrush with the usual headlong pelt, but its running is a horrible, listing, splay-limbed parody of a healthy rabbit’s gallop. A dozen feet from us it loses it completely and wipes out in a rolling tangle, back feet still pumping uselessly, a jerky scrawl that suggests profound neurological decay.

Rabies? I hoist Jonah up on my shoulders, a frequent instinctive response to things that alarm me on his behalf, and go to squat down and take a closer look.

Whatever afflicts it, this creature will not be posing a threat to anything. I don’t know what last burst of organized energy impelled its flight from us, because it seems all but paralyzed now, nothing but palsied tremors. It is prone, its body half twisted. An eye rolls up, apparently regarding me. My instinct is to kill it, put it out of its misery, but I can’t make the logistics work, with Jonah along, and admittedly I don’t really want to. I’ve never killed a rabbit, least of all with my bare hands, although I am acquainted with the theory. I killed a mouse once, at a greenhouse where I worked. Its pelvis had been crushed in a spring trap and the inclination of my more squeamish coworkers who had found it was to get it out of earshot and forget about it. No one objected to me taking responsibility for its final disposition. It is a terrible thing how the smallest of beings will fight for life, when there is no hope at all.

But there’s no fight in this thing and for all I know it will be most merciful to simply allow it solitude and peace. It’s impossible not to anthropomorphize these situations. It’s a moot point, anyway. I straighten up, adjust Jonah on my shoulders. And walk away, leaving the rabbit there, to die.

originally posted at spiritofsalt.com Mar 20, 2008 11:47 AM... and here I will end the not quite complete reposting of the erstwhile Spirit of Salt blog. Pax vobiscum, babies