burial

The year I was 17, my dad and I were driving home from Devon and I noticed a rabbit had been struck by a car and was lying across those yellow lines dividing the street as roadkill. I thought it was really gross because there was a clear tire tread mark straight through the rabbit's back, as if this was articulated vehicular manslaughter, er, rabbitslaughter. I looked back through the car's sideview mirror watching the dead rabbit get smaller, taking in the fact that pursuing cars simply swerved awkwardly to avoid it.

About a week bore on slowly - days tend to linger when you're working outside in burning sun scraping beautiful oil from tailings samples in order to find out the percentage of raw oil you've been able to extract. Every evening after the work bell sounded, I'd hang up my orange hard hat, dump my dirty work clothes into my locker, and board my dad's minivan for the ride home. Every evening for a week we'd pass that road on the way back from Devon, swerving to avoid that dead rabbit.

I thought the city usually appointed someone to clean up these messes, like animal control or one of its similar factions. I guess it was just too far out of the way for City of Edmonton to clean up, and just far enough for the County of Devon not to care. So lay this bunny in no man's land, baking out in the hot sun. The sight was ghastly.

One day when I was at work with nothing particularly interesting to do, I thought about that rabbit. I was hit with the sudden epiphany that nobody was going to do anything about him, and that if I wanted something done, I should do it myself. I grabbed a plastic bag that I had used to wrap up my lunch container, and a set of purple nitrile gloves we used at work. I put these in my back jeans pocket for use later in the day.

The work bell sounded, I hung up my orange hard hat, threw my work clothes in my locker, and hopped on my dad's minivan. The air was thick in the way that summer heat makes the air dry and stifling. We drove upon the road, my heart pounding at the task I would complete. We neared the rabbit and I told my dad to pull over; I was going to move that rabbit. My dad smirked but complied - whatever makes you happy, son.

I pulled on the gloves, then I got out. The air seemed a hundred times hotter without the van's air conditioning - it must have been 25 degrees out, easy. I took my time while cars passed, then the road was clear. I went over and took a look at the rabbit, and almost vomited. The guts had oozed out and dried against the pavement, and a large portion of its torso had been mutilated by birds or other scavenging creatures. It was infested with maggots and there were flies buzzing around. I plugged my nose because I knew the stench would make me gag, approached it, and using the plastic bag, I attempted to pick it up. The rabbit was too big to be bagged, so I thought I'd just move it. One of the flies landed on my arm, and in complete revulsion, I dropped the rabbit.

My dad laughed. I turned my head for a second and saw that he'd gotten out of the van to observe the proceedings. Having my dad there kind of gave me some courage - no son wants his dad to see he's weak - so I grabbed the damn thing, and being too disgusted to walk it over to the end of the curb, I chucked it into the ditch, bag and all. I carefully removed my gloves and threw those too, a pair of purple hands marking the grave of Peter Rabbit.

I was worried about myxamatosis and other rabbit-related diseases. I went home and thoroughlly washed my hands, then showered for half an hour. I've never felt both so dirty and so righteous at the same time.

Looking back on the incident, why did I psuedo bury this bunny? Was it out of respect? Was it simply because I didn't want to see people inconvenienced by it? Was I disgusted by the sight of a dead rabbit day after day with nobody doing anything about it?

Deep in my heart, maybe I just needed validation that by knowing what it means to be dead, I know what it means to be alive.