Microfiction: Rabbits
"...tiny, furry bodies mangled by the blades..."
“They’re a real nuisance. Now when I see ‘em while mowing the lawn I just try to run ‘em over,” Fr. Lowell admitted with an exasperated chuckle.
It was at the tail end of a tour of the lonely old two-story parsonage: a quaint chapel, an unfinished basement, a small back yard with a plastic shed and vegetable garden. Warren Francis had crouched down in the mid-day sun, examining a hole in the lawn filled with grayish fluff. The comment brought an image to him: tiny furry bodies mangled by the blades, blood mingling with the clippings. It made him nauseous. Oblivious, Fr. Lowell handed over a set of keys and a neighbor’s cell phone number scribbled on a scrap of paper in case of emergency, then was off to Florida for a much-delayed vacation.
Warren made sure the next three weeks were bloodless. Removing the lawnmower from the shed and tracing his path of narrowing concentric circles (“I don’t care how you cut it, as long as it gets cut,” Fr. Lowell had told him), he kept his eyes peeled for grayish fur. But he caught only glimpses as they frantically hopped away and slipped under the gaps in the fence. He conscientiously shooed them away (they nibbled the plants). But he found himself almost rooting for them, as an ally in a struggle against the cleric.
He forgot to drop the keys in the mailbox on his last day, so he swung by on a Saturday morning after Fr. Lowell returned to hand them off in person. He hopped up the stairs and rang the doorbell. A smiling Fr. Lowell answered, and the second thing Warren noticed (the first being the priest’s fresh tan) was the fine splatter of crimson across his calves.