This is where the summer ends. (Part 2)

It was a typical hot and hazy summer, and my brother and I were having a typically lazy day. I was probably six or seven at the time, which means that he would have been four or five, when my dad called from work and asked to speak to our mom. When she hung up, she looked at us and said, “Dad’s bringing home a little surprise.”

Well, this was exciting! We couldn’t imagine what it could be, and could barely contain ourselves until he got home, cardboard box in hand. When he sat the box down on the floor we peered inside, and were surprised to find a baby rabbit cowering in the corner and looking terrified. Especially when Bobo, our family dog, came running over and stuck her nose into the box to investigate. Apparently, the poor little guy had been ejected from his rabbit hole in the grass outside my dad’s office building while it was being mowed. And upon discovering it, rather than leaving it to die (which it probably would have since it wasn’t yet old enough to survive on its own), my dad brought it home for us to try and nurse it back to health and ultimately release it back into the wild.

Yay, summer project!

And nurse it back to health we did. Over the next month or two, the little guy (who we named “Nibbles” at my mother’s suggestion) ate and ate and grew and grew, and seemed to warm up to us, and even to Bobo, who he now actually seemed to enjoy hanging out with. We grew pretty attached to him, but also knew that the day was coming when we’d have to let him go. And when it suddenly dawned on us that he was in fact a healthy, full-grown rabbit, we knew it was time to put him back where he belonged.

So with heavy hearts, we carried Nibbles to the entrance of the woods behind our house, and set him down on the ground. And do you know what the ungrateful little shit did? He bounded into the bushes without even a backward glance! Well, fine then. So much for gratitude.

And the lazy life of a camp-less summer resumed.

One evening, not long after, I was playing around in the pool and happened to look out across the yard, back to the woods, and saw Nibbles hanging out around the bushes at the border between our property and the forest that was now his home. There he was, just milling about, looking toward us as if to say hello. And, I imagined, “thank you.” There was that gratitude my six-year-old heart was searching for! He hung out for a bit, sniffed around, and eventually hopped back into the woods.

And life continued like that. Each day he’d come back for his little visit, and my brother and I would call to our mom, “Hey ma, Nibbles is back.” We’d wave, and he’d hop away until the next time. Cute. It warmed our hearts.

That is, until the day we killed him.

Why is it that the darkest days never begin with any hint of the darkness that is to come? The day began like any other. Hot and sunny, my brother and I begging our mother to allow us to stay inside and watch tv for once, and as usual being forcefully ejected from the house to entertain ourselves out on the grounds of Camp Suck. At one point, some of the neighborhood kids wandered over, and we started up a game of Marco Polo in the pool. I think I may have been cheating when I opened my eyes and looked out into the yard, and saw Nibbles out there saying his customary hello.

So out we all went into the yard, the neighborhood kids all wanting to see this rabbit that we had nursed back to health and that had grown so attached to us. My mom decided to take advantage of a few minutes of kid-free pool time, and climbed onto a raft with a book for a little relaxation. Honestly, my poor mother never did get much relaxation time when we were around. Especially when the neighborhood kids were over. I swear they liked playing with her more than they liked playing with us.

So I led them all across the yard, not noticing that somewhere along the way my next-door neighbor had joined us, his family’s pet cat in his arms.

You know where this is going.

I will never forget the momentary look of pure and absolute terror in that rabbit’s eyes as it turned and tried to flee back into the bushes.

But it was too late. The cat had already bounded out of my neighbor’s arms and was upon Nibbles before any of us even knew what was happening. It clamped down on him, its jaws sinking into his skull, and took off across the yard, no doubt to kill and devour its prize.

We took off running after it, a chorus of screams and shouts reaching my mom’s ears as she scrambled to get out of the pool and see what in the hell was going on. I remember removing my beach towel from around my waist as I ran across the yard, attempting to whip the cat with it in the hope that I could make it drop the rabbit and that it wouldn’t be too late. But no luck. The cat was immune to our shouts and the strikes of the towel against its back.

When we got to the fence separating our yard from our neighbors’, the cat realized it wasn’t going to be able to easily escape the wrath of the angry mob pursuing it. And in a fear-motivated, split-second decision it dropped Nibbles’ carcass on the ground and bounded over the fence on its own, into the neighbors’ yard.

I remember watching him die, his body twitching with the spasms of death as the life left his black little eyes. I remember the blood gushing out of the wound on the top of his head. I remember my mom simultaneously trying to console those of us that were crying and convince the others who were shouting plans of feline torture and revenge that that was probably not a good or humane idea. I remember the incapacitating feelings of guilt that I was only beginning to experience, and that would persist for a long, long time, knowing that I was responsible for the death of that being that had trusted us so implicitly.

My brother and I were inconsolable. When my dad drove up and was greeted by this confusion, my frazzled mother handed him a shovel with which to dispose of the carcass, and in a moment of complete frustration looked at him and muttered:

“Next summer, summer camp.”