
Happy Sunday. This week I thought I’d share another one of my short stories, as part of the short story initiative I started a few weeks ago where instead of a regular blog post I share a story I’ve written and invite you to share your thoughts on it. The last one of these I shared was The Traveller, and today’s short story is called One Summer Holiday. I also feel the need to say that this one is inspired by true events. As always, I’d love to hear what you think of it. Let me know if you’d like more of these in the future.
— One Summer Holiday —
When I was 13, I spent the summer holiday building a cage. It was a 3-storey wooden structure, with doors that swung on hinges, wire nets for see-through windows, and various compartments on the three floors, connected by staircases. Oh, it was a thing of beauty, and it took a lot out of me. Not just me, to be fair. I had help from my brother and a couple of the neighbourhood kids. Still, it was my summer project, and I took pride in it.
You should have seen me back then. I drew up pseudo schematics and blueprints on paper like I was some sort of distinguished architect. With my protractors and compass and array of pencils, splayed all over our glass dining table, I imagined I looked like a professional on the cover of Architectural Digest, hard at work at crafting an aesthetically pleasing landmark.
I sourced the wood locally from discarded piles in construction sites, bought a saw, a hammer and lots of nails, and worked hard at building this cage. My 13-year-old mind was convinced I was doing all this for the noblest of reasons – I was getting a rabbit on the final weekend of the summer before school resumed. I’d met the rabbit already, and she was beautiful. She was one of those albino rabbits, with spotless white fur and glowing red eyes. I had big plans for her. I’d bring her home from the breeder – who happened to be a close family friend – settle her in, then after a few weeks, maybe months, I’d go back and get her a little boy rabbit so they’ll do what rabbits do, and in no time there’ll be lots of little rabbits running up and down the 3 floors of the cage that would be their family home. I had it all mapped out.
I don’t remember how long this little project of mine took, but it had to have been the better part of the summer, and by the end, I was proud of the result. Mum drove me to the breeder's house to pick up the bunny on the Sunday before the first day of the new term. We brought her home and I placed her in the cage, fortified with water stations and sawdust bedding. And of course leaves, all the leaves she could eat. I stood in front of the cage and watched her settle in, tentative at first, sniffing and watching gingerly as she navigated her new habitat. I must have watched for hours, it was all I wanted to do that Sunday evening. My appetite was non-existent, I had no desire to watch TV or play video games, and I even had to be forced to press my school uniform and prepare my books and school materials for Monday morning. When I went to bed that Sunday night, I dreamed of rabbits, lots of them, running around in the cage, being let out to run around in our compound, hopping and circling and nibbling around my feet. It was a beautiful dream, but like all good things, it had to end because Monday morning came around and I had to go to school.
The first day of the new term couldn’t end quickly enough. I thought about my little bunny all day at school. When I wasn’t thinking about her, I was telling my classmates about her. And when I wasn’t thinking about her or telling my classmates about her, I was watching the clock closely. All I wanted was for the final bell to go off so I could hop on the school bus for the ride home. The school day was long, longer than was typical of secondary schools around the city. It wasn’t unusual to be at school for 12 hours. Some days, the school bus picked up my brother and me before 6am, and we wouldn’t get dropped off until around 6pm. But 6pm came around, and I found myself alighting from the school bus and running home, leaving my brother behind. Mum had church on Monday evenings, and Dad was out of town on business as he usually was, so my brother and I knew there would be no one home. We had spare keys for the big gate and the house door for this very reason, and I clutched them so tightly as I ran towards the gate, eager to be reunited with my little bunny.
The thing I haven’t told you, until now, is that the bunny wasn’t the only pet we had. When I was around 7 or 8, we got a dog. His name was Scooby. I know, I know, not very original, but I grew up on the cartoons, and I found the goofy titular character quite loveable. Like the character, our Scooby was loveable and friendly, but unlike the famous character, ours wasn’t a great Dane. Our scooby was a mutt, he probably had some Labrador in him, maybe some Doberman, and some other breed or breeds with short coats. I say this with the benefit of hindsight, because back then I didn’t know much about these dog breeds, or the concept of breeds.
Scooby was just Scooby, and he looked like any other dog in the neighbourhood, except for his white and golden brown coat. Our Scooby differed from the cartoon character in another way. Unlike the goofy, food-obsessed great Dane, ours had a mean streak, especially when it came to strangers. He therefore doubled as a loyal family mutt and a fierce guard dog. He was territorial like that. Whenever a guest knocked on the big gate, he’d pace around in circles near the gate, barking, howling, and showing teeth, until he saw us interact with them and made sure they were no harm to us. He recognised them too, probably by their scent as dogs do, and learned not to bark and howl the next time they came around. He learned to accept them, to recognise that from time to time, there would be other people that weren’t mum, or dad or the boys in the house and the surrounding compound he had marked as his territory.
But there was an exception, because while Scooby could abide other humans coming and going, he took no prisoners when it came to other animals. Have I mentioned how territorial he was? Well, one time, there was a knock on the gate, and I went to see who was there. When I opened it, I saw a man I recognised from the neighbourhood. He was carrying a young, brown goat, draped over the back of his neck. I was horrified to see that blood gushed from the poor goat’s forehead over his shoulders, but the man seemed unfazed by this. He’d come to tell us, in an unusually calm manner, that he’d seen Scooby attacking his goats, and he’d brought the unfortunate kid as proof of this fatal attack. That wasn’t the only time Scooby attacked other animals. There were other goats, sheep, chickens, lizards, snakes, even other dogs. The exception was the cows the nomads sometimes herded past our compound. Maybe it was their size, or the horns they were equipped with. Either way, Scooby knew better than to go after them. He knew the limits of his power, it seemed. Now that I think about it, I took pride in Scooby’s territorial exploits, and I was secretly pleased he could best any dog in the neighbourhood, and other domestic animals didn’t stand a chance.
Do you see where this is going? I’ll spell it out regardless. When the school bus dropped us off on Monday evening, I ran to our gate and let myself into our compound, only to be confronted with perhaps the biggest shock my 13-year-old self had ever experienced. There I was, staring at the cage I’d built, but the door was hanging upside down on one of its two hinges, and the wire nets had been ripped apart. Needless to say, there was no rabbit in the cage. It took an extra moment to comprehend what had happened, and in that split second between being confronted with the visual debris and my brain registering the disaster, I held onto some kind of twisted optimism. My mind made up stories, like maybe the wind had blown the cage apart and my little bunny was sheltering under our orange tree. But there was no wind, and although we had several orange trees, my mind had to know that none of them could provide any form of shelter for a furry animal. My emotional mind caught up with my logical brain eventually, and I had no choice but to accept what had happened, especially when the visual confirmation came in the form of the lifeless rabbit lying on its side just a few feet from the cage. I walked over to it and held it in my hands. It was cold and stiff, like a taxidermied animal. I had no choice but to face the reality. Scooby had yanked the cage door off its hinges and attacked the bunny. This was yet another animal in his space that he couldn’t abide.
I cried my eyes out as I held my dead rabbit in my hands. I couldn’t stop thinking about it for days afterwards. Why had this happened? Why had this happened to me? What could I have done differently? You might be thinking, it was just a rabbit, to which I say, (1) grow a heart, and (2) you probably haven’t experienced any kind of loss, have you? Good for you. This was my first experience of loss, and I don’t wish it on anyone.
Anyway, time passed, and it started to hurt less and less, and eventually I woke up one morning having put enough distance between myself and the incident, that I could reflect on what had happened without bawling my eyes out. With the benefit of hindsight, I see now that I shouldn’t have assumed my 13-year-old self had the expertise to build a cage fitting for a living, breathing thing. If I really wanted to do right by the little bunny, I would have brought in the necessary help to build it, and build it right. Maybe if I’d acknowledged the limits of my expertise my bunny would’ve gone on to have a long and happy life. Or maybe the only way to know for sure was to try, and fail miserably. I suppose we’ll never know.
P.S.: My debut non-fiction book, Art Is The Way, and my middle-grade novella, A Hollade Christmas, are out everywhere now. You can get them in all good bookstores and from all major online vendors.