Bunny in the Road

It might have been our first fun family outing. A quick drive after dinner, through the valley, past the bison, to the general and only store, for ice cream. Athena started crying right from the start. But at the store, on her back on her changing pad on the lawn, she cooed adorably, the fluffy clouds reflecting in her glossy dark eyes.

But then, on the twelve-mile drive home, came the day I'd been dreading since I started driving again after leaving the city in my late twenties.  A tiny bunny hopped into the road.  I swerved, I slowed.  But the tiny bunny was unpredictable.  And, at some speed still: Clunkety!

I drew to a stop and looked, with dread, in the rear view mirror.  Some thirty feet back, a big fluff flailing in the road.  I rued all the days I wondered what to keep in the car - an air gun? a Rambo knife? - for just this situation.  I whined my regret to my honey in the back seat with Athena.  Then braced myself and got out of the car to assess the spilling guts.

It was flailing wildly, half on its back, trying with one back leg to push itself off the road.  But there were no spilling guts.  Back and forth, I went to the car, twice, maybe three times, consternating.  The first bird landed by the bunny.  And I determined at least to help it die in peace.

I took the laundry basket from the trunk, which we use these days to corral groceries, and a couple big, black plastic bags, left from our last drop-off of recyclables.  I shooed the bird away and scooped the now docile, limp bunny into the basket with the bags, turning the bags round into bedding as I did so.  On the front seat, home by twilight, and into the secure red shed for peace into the long night.

Late the next morning, I steeled myself with a Milky Way candy bar, before walking out to fetch the bunny for burial.  I opened one door, then the other, and there was the sweet, sweet bunny, sitting up and alert in the box I'd arranged.  It had pooped on the clean rags.  Peed, or spilled the water.  And eaten all the shredded carrots.

A little later, we took a walk down to the culvert.  Petros frontpacking Athena.  And me carrying the bunny in the box.  We stopped alongside the mowed path and tipped the box slowly away from us, into the long grass.  Over the top edge, we saw the bunny muzzle twitching.  And not long later, it hopped out, with a measured urgency, into the long grass, then the brush, and away.  It hopped always with both back legs at once.  But I think all its legs were working.